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Humor December 2013

Ernie's World

O Christmas Shrub, O Christmas Shrub...

By Ernie Witham

Time flies when you are finding yourself and before we knew it, it was December and the Christmas spirit was high. People added tinsel to their peace signs and painted their Birkenstocks day-glo colors. Some even rolled joints in Christmas wrap.

Christmas 1968, I was living with two high school buddies in San Diego.

We had driven across the country from Laconia, New Hampshire, shortly after graduation in an effort to “find ourselves.”

“Where the heck are we?”

“According to my calculations, either Topeka, Kansas, or Juneau, Alaska.”

“Far out.”

We took historic Route 66 for much of the journey and saw many wondrous things.

“What the heck was that?”

“According to my guidebook, either a moonstone or a dead armadillo.”

“Trippy.”

Somehow we made it and found an apartment in the “posh” Ocean Beach (OB) community of San Diego that consisted of two parts hippy to one part navy personnel. We decided, since we already had long hair and a lava lamp, to become part of the majority party.

Once we were settled and had found our way around...

“Where are we now?”

“Either Point Loma or Tijuana Mexico.”

We spent several days showing off the wallet-sized replicas of our diplomas that Laconia High School had given us until – ta-dah – we found gainful employment at a carwash. The dream had begun.

Time flies when you are finding yourself and before we knew it, it was December and the Christmas spirit was high. People added tinsel to their peace signs and painted their Birkenstocks day-glo colors. Some even rolled joints in Christmas wrap. Plus all the head shops put blinking lights around their bong displays and many of us hung out for hours, listening to the Grateful Dead and remembering yuletides past.

“Joyously far out, man.”

Even our navy neighbors got in the spirit by stringing beer-can flip-tops throughout their entire apartment and dressing up one of their passed-out friends as Santa.

“Groovy, man.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

That’s when we decided we needed to do something to our place. We bought a black light and a strobe light and those were cool, but not too Christmassy. So we bought some incense and seasonally packaged yogurt, which was nice, but still lacking.

“We need a tree, man.”

We pooled our money – all two dollars and forty-three cents of it.

“You can buy half of New Hampshire for the price of one Christmas tree out here.”

We had about given up when the Ghost of Christmas Future visited. Actually, it was just Dharma, a girl from across the street, who often forgot which unit she lived in. She took us to a large empty lot behind our apartment.

“Dig it,” she said. And we watched as a number of huge tumbleweeds danced about like sugar plum fairies.

“Outtasight!”

We chased one around and around until we finally captured it, dragged it into our place, strung some popcorn, and covered the entire thing with Christmas lights. It did smell a bit weird, and several of our navy friends who were firemen on a destroyer thought it a tad dangerous to add electricity to a dead bush. But we survived. It was the strangest Christmas tree I had ever seen.

Until this year.

“Why did you buy a shrub?”

“It’s not a shrub. It’s an Araucaria heterophylla.”

“Did you just swear at me?”

“That’s the genus name, it’s a Norfolk Island Pine.”

“Groovy. So why did you buy a Norfolk Island Pine that looks like a shrub.”

“It’s our Christmas tree.”

“What? No way. It’s not even shaped like a Christmas tree. I’m not sure I can accept it.”

“Right. This from a guy who once decorated a tumbleweed.”

Still skeptical, I circled it several times trying to find the front, but to no avail.

“Look, I thought this year it would be nice to get a living tree and then after Christmas you could put it into a nice pot and bonsai it.”

“Far out!” I grabbed my clippers.

My wife threw herself in front of it. “Not now!”

“Just a few snips?”

That’s when she explained how some of my initial prunings resulted in a less-tree-like and more-stick-like result. So, I put my clippers down and grabbed a bag of Cheetos.

“More colorful than popcorn, plus if we get the munchies all we have to do is reach out to the shrub.”

Later, my wife tinkled Christmas carols on her piano as I sat around Araucaria heterophylla stringing together wine corks.

Merry Christmas, old friends, wherever you are.

 

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