A True Christmas Story

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A TOOTHBRUSH?

I loved the piano, it was my favorite instrument. When I was five in 1947 living in Wrangell, an island town in Alaska, I’d go for walks with Mom. I’d always say, “Let’s walk a little further, Mama.”

She’d tease me and try to head back home. “No, Mama, just walk a little further.”

Until we’d get to Mrs. Dibble’s house where she had a piano, then I’d say, “Let’s see if Mrs. Dibble is home and has cookies.” But the real reason I wanted to go to her house was because she had a piano.

Mrs. Dibble didn’t have a phone. She didn’t know we were coming, but it was no surprise. She always let us in and let me make rolling thunder on the base keys and then tinkling rain on the high keys, ending with calm sunshine on the mid-range.

Mom said Mrs. Dibble didn’t mind me playing on her piano. She said I never made noise even though I couldn’t play a note.

After my tenth birthday my mother let me take lessons although we had no piano. I walked a mile and a half to my Aunt and Uncle’s house to practice on their ancient out-of-tune upright. My Aunt played piano or accordion for local dances.

Seeing that my determination to learn was not just a passing fancy, Mom and Dad bought me an old used upright. Now I could practice every day.  I was eleven in the fall of 1953 when I had a severe case of measles. I recovered from the measles but had a return of rheumatic fever which I had overcome in early childhood after spending thirty days in the local hospital.

This time there was no doctor in Wrangell, and a doctor in Petersburg, a neighboring town also on an island, treated me. I could attend school mornings, and must spend the afternoons in bed. I had to quit my piano lessons because the lessons were too stressful.

The next summer I could play the piano again, and this time I taught myself using the material from a correspondence course, the U.S. School of Music. Meanwhile, I had fallen in love with the popular music of the day.

A family friend, who’d once played piano in the same dive in Chicago as the now famous Liberace, tuned our piano. I loved to listen to Johnny play. He played three hundred songs from memory. One day he taught me how to keep the base beat to popular music. His long fingers stretched across ten keys, I could only do eight, an octave.

I placed a sheet of music on the piano, The Tennessee Waltz, made famous by singer Patti Page. With my left hand, I played octave, chord, chord, octave, chord, chord, ONE, two, three, ONE, two three, using the chords written for guitar. I pumped the loud pedal at the start of each measure. With my right hand I played the melody notes written on the score. I easily played the waltz, composed in the key of C with no sharps or flats. My first attempt at playing popular sheet music and I loved it.

August of 1956, after the summer salmon seine fishing season ended, Dad and Mom and I moved from Wrangell to Ketchikan. Dad had a year around job as a welder in a shop owned by a friend. The friend allowed Dad six weeks off to fish the summer seining season. I would go to high school in a town of 6,500 people instead of in Wrangell with 1200.

“You don’t feel sad at leaving your friends?” Mom asked.

“Mom, I’ve gone to school with the same kids all my life. I am so excited about getting to meet new people.” Two of the girls I grew up with I had considered close friends. But life had changed as boys and girls became more interested in each other. Girls no longer spent so much time with their friends. There was nothing to miss.

Except the piano. “Mom, I wish I could take my piano. I know Dad can’t get that heavy monster to the float and aboard our boat to haul it to Ketchikan.”

“The couple who are renting our house while we’re gone will keep heat in and dampness out. The piano will survive.”

“I know. But I wish I didn’t have to live without my piano.”

Our first Christmas in Ketchikan, Mom said we didn’t have a lot of money for presents. “Useful gifts are all we’ll have under the tree this year.” I didn’t care. I was busy with all my new friends and school.

“I always wanted a fake fireplace for Christmas, but never had one,” Mom said. “Your dad is going to build me one.”

My dad was famous for his jury-rigging and bad carpentry. At my mother’s request he added a new bathroom in our house in Wrangell. He put all the plumbing in front of the walls because it was easier. There we were with metal water pipes running from basin to tub to toilet on the surface of the fake green wall tile.

No surprise to me that the cardboard fireplace covered in brick printed paper looked cheap and ungainly. We barely had room enough for the tree beside it in our small apartment over the welding shop.

Whatever. Mom was happy, she had her fake fireplace.

As was our tradition, we opened our gifts Christmas morning. Dad wrote rhyming poetry, and he said, “Since we’re having a small Christmas this year, I’ve written you a poem. Each line is in a present, so you need to open them in order.”

“Okay.”  This was really different. I opened each present and it seemed they got smaller and lesser in value. The next to the last line in the poem said, “To find a gift from St. Nick,” I picked up the last present under the tree and unwrapped it. I couldn’t believe it. My parents had given me a toothbrush! For Christmas! I read the final line. “Take a look behind the __”   My mind went as blank as the missing word on the piece of paper. I couldn’t make sense out of the poem at all. My brain was stuck on the unbelievable, a toothbrush as a Christmas present.

Finally, Dad said, “Maybe there’s a gift that fell down behind the fireplace.” He pulled the fake fireplace slightly out from the wall.

Mom led me over to the fireplace. Finally, I saw the smooth, dark mahogany wood, then the gleaming black and white keys. The name, Baldwin written in gold letters. I gasped as Dad pulled the fireplace completely away and revealed my brand new piano.

Not a toothbrush for Christmas after all. Only something needed to hold the last line in a poem. I laughed and hugged my parents, sat down at the piano, my hands roaming over the keys. I heard the most beautiful sound flow from beneath my fingers.

I’d had to leave my precious old piano behind. Now, thanks to the love and generosity of my parents, I’d received a gift I’d thought I’d never have, a brand new Baldwin.