6/18/12
Edgar - My Man!
I was probably 17 and hadn’t yet dated much and was lonely. Why didn't the boys ask me out - who knows I guess that's for them to say. At the time my brother had a close friend, Dave Guinn,
and I always secretly thought he would have made an excellent boyfriend - but that never happened - at least not for me.
It was December and Dave, who was at our house a lot, asked me casually what I wanted for
Christmas. My equally casual answer was - a
boyfriend. Christmas Eve came and like
most kids (even teenagers) wanted to know what was under the tree that hadn’t
been there before we went to bed. Of
course, you can’t turn the lights on, so this was definitely a “search and touch” mission
that I performed every year. Don't worry - my Christmas mornings weren't ruined for me - because what you "see" and touch in the dark isn't always what you thought it was by the light of day.
That particular Christmas Eve I went padding into the living room and
even in the dark I could see the large long-legged shape of somebody on the
sofa. I assumed that Dave had slept over
which wasn’t all that unusual, so I continued to “see” what else I could discover. After bumping and thumping my way through the
living room (and I’m sure Mom must have heard me) I returned to bed and waited
for morning.
Christmases were always an early wake-up call and
my parents were very good about getting up and staggering around until the
coffee was made. This was, of course, before
programmable coffee pots so they weren’t initially bright-eyed and
bushy-tailed but they allowed themselves to be pulled out of bed at the wee hours of the morning, year after year. This tradition, I'm happy to say, continued on with my own children - but my coffee pot was programmed to make coffee in the middle of the night!
We were living in Illinois at the time where the winters can
be quite severe and always long. My father had a wonderful sense of humor so when Christmas was
over and we had removed Edgar’s sign, my Dad put out a lawn chair on the front porch
and propped Edgar in it. I can’t tell
you how many people that winter nearly drove off the road because they thought
that there was some fool sitting outside!
Dave, who unfortunately has since passed away, was a good listener and gave me exactly what I asked for that year. I would have very much liked to tell him when I was an adult what a wonderful and heart warming gift Edgar was. .And clearly, one that I haven't forgotten!
P
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