Before I get into Christmas let me put it out there that
I am not a religious person but if I was I would have to consider myself Jewish
since that is my blood line. That being said, I do believe in Jesus, I just
don’t believe that Jesus was the son of god because there is no god. I do think
that Jesus was such a charismatic person that the impression he left on
humanity through his teachings and deeds has endured and grown for thousands of
years.
I could
go into a big old rant about how modern Christmas is just about crass
commercialism, gaudy light displays, over indulgent parties, and forced get together
with families but that’s not where I’m going this year. No, to me Christmas is
about birth and death.
Celebrating
Christmas is kind of a strange thing because the holiday is about the birth of
Jesus but in the back of our minds we all know the end of the story, that in
not so many years he is crucified and dies. For me every year when Christmas comes
around I think about death, not because of Jesus but because of my younger
sister Moira.
When I was Sixteen years old
my sister disappeared on December 19th, the day before her Fifteenth
birthday. I don’t have real strong memories partially because it was 44 years ago
but also because that was the year that I discovered pot so I was stoned
through the whole ordeal. I thought that she had run away because that’s what I
wished I had the courage to do considering the dysfunctional state of our
family and that’s also how the police were treating it.
Her birthday came and went,
presents unopened, then Christmas, then New Year. I was on winter break from
school so I just partied with my friends and didn’t think about much other than
myself. A month into the New Year we learned the truth, that she had been
killed on that first day she went missing and our family was never the same
again.
So that’s my tale from the dark
side of Christmas, one of the many reasons I can’t get to excited about the
holidays. But it’s not all doom and gloom, on the brighter side December 20th
was not only my sisters birthday but it’s also my wife’s birthday and I’m so
thankful that’s she’s in my life because I can’t imagine where I’d be without
her.
Like I said, Christmas is
about death and birth, and the holiday season is when I consider myself to have
been reborn as Steady Eddy. When I was 32, living in Flint, unhappy at work and
not sure of my future, a serendipitous holiday opportunity or dare we say
Christmas Miracle arose that changed me forever.
There was this place in
downtown Flint that had been built at a cost of $80 Million to help revitalize
the area and attract tourists. It was billed as an amusement park / museum and
was called Six Flags AutoWorld. When it opened in 1984 there was great hope but
it closed for the first time after just 6 months and was on again off again for
a few years and then closed.
In 1989, Flint had a new
mayor and possession of AutoWorld by default. He decided to reopen the park for
the 5 week holiday season and long story short, I was at an AutoWorld meeting representing
the beer distributor I worked for when they asked about vendors and I
volunteered to run the popcorn concessions even though I had no real experience
but hey, how hard can popcorn be?
To run the concession I had
to get a business license and to get the license I needed a DBA. The name I
came up with was Steady Eddy’s Pushcarts. Steady Eddy was one of my many high
school nicknames and pushcarts because some of the popcorn poppers were on
wooden carts but also because one of my all time favorite books as a kid was
called “The Pushcart Wars”. That’s how I became Steady Eddy and those 5 weeks
were great. Diane and I running around multiple locations inside the park,
making popcorn and hot pretzels, managing our staff, interacting with visitors,
other vendors, and city employees. Before long everyone was just calling me
“Steady” and I loved it.
It was my best Christmas
ever, I didn’t care that everything was over the top decorated or that Christmas
music was blasting non-stop. Everyone was having fun, including myself and best
of all, Diane and I netted five thousand dollars under the table, Ho, Ho, Ho.
To view the column in it's original form go to page 14 of the following link. Winters Express 12/21/17
No comments:
Post a Comment