Plaquemines Parish
Christmas, 2006
A Trilogy
by Ray McGlew
I feel that holidays are “manufactured events”, and I just can’t get into things like that. I would much rather experience my 5-year old twin grandsons’ joy of riding a steam train or even just playing outside than sitting around watching football on with one eye while watching others open presents that they may or may not want/need/use. After spending the Thanksgiving holiday at the Y-Cafe with my 14 year-old son, I just had to return and continue the experience.
A lot of people said to me something like “it’s so great of you to give up your holidays to help other people”. I guess I should be honored… but it is like being honored for something that you just want to do for your self. I guess if you are the type of person that feels the same way you get it… if you are not then it goes right over your head! These three stories came out of that holiday time.
Playing Santa Clause
Why was I chosen to play Santa at the Y-Café Christmas Party? I dunno… maybe it was the grey beard, the paunch… whatever. I jumped at the chance.
I made my grand entrance, and started to listen to the kids requests. I was mentally prepared for the usual requests for video games, bicycles and such. I certainly wasn’t prepared for one little boy who asked for his home back. It’s usually hard to make me at a loss for words, but this one did. I finally said something about taking a long time to rebuild a home but I was not satisfied with my answer.
I stayed in character for the next 15 minutes or so… Christmas hugs all around. But as soon as I went back to the dressing room and started to change I dropped out of character and the tears started to flow.
Baking Bread, Breaking Bread at the 450
I don’t know who suggested that bread making would be a fun thing to do at Diamond Trailer Park. Probably Jeff or Joe figuring that I could keep some of the kids busy for a while. I thought that the biggest challenge would be that I would have a hard time finding enough kids to make it worthwhile. Not the case! Anyway, time away from the dish pit was special!
Lets see... no oven. No sanitary area to prepare. No oven (oh, yeah, said that already). Maybe if we put a medium size pot inside a large pot and placed the whole thing on top of a burner that will work. No time to test it, just load everything into the yellow bus and hope you remembered what you needed.
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