My Worst Christmas Ever

In 1960 at Christmas time I was enrolled at Oklahoma Military Academy, Claremore, Oklahoma. It was a fine school although I gravitated to the group of guys figuring out how to get out of everything. For example I figured out one Saturday morning after maneuvers that when I was told to shine my boots afterwards (it would have taken a few hours) that I could just walk out the door and go to town the back way without signing out, known in our vernacular as going AWOL. As long as I left with the crowd and returned with the crowd, no one noticed. Hmmmm.

Back to the story, I fell in with a family in town that I adopted as my 'home away from home' where I could show up like Eddie Haskell from Leave It to Beaver. 20 years later I went back to tell them how much they meant to me. I explained myself to "papa" but he wasn't showing any signs of recognition. When I started to talk about watching TV there, his eyes lit up, "Oh, you're that kid that used to come over all the time to watch TV!" Yep, that was me. Well, anyway, I left the campus with the crowd, duly loaded with a few bucks spending money I had withdrawn from my account at the business office. I visited the local drugstore malt shop (they weren't shoppe's back then), and I went to the movies, spending most of $1. I then went to the Snelling's, intending to spend Christmas with them. I even talked Joanie into going to the movies with me. She was 17 and I was 14 and she insisted I couldn't hold her hand or put my arm around her because I was too young for her and her friends would talk and give her the business. I never understood that gem of wisdom.

I ate with the and slept with them wherever there was an empty bed or easy chair. They just went to bed and I just didn't go "home." After a couple of days Mrs. Snelling announced they were going t Oklahoma City for Christmas and I'd have to leave the house. Why didn't they invite me to go with them? I just didn't understand. Now I ad to go back to the campus to my barracks, penniless and alone. The barracks were locked up and the doors chained shut (they always were when the campus was shut for the holidays). I was used to that. I always left something undone like a window latch so I could get back in. All was taken care of except money to eat on and walking 2 miles to town to eat. What were my parents thinking when I spent maybe $10 or $15 over two weeks to live on, room and board? It cost maybe $1-$2 a night to stay at the YMCA in Tulsa (that's another story). Even if I spent $1/day for food, that's $28 minimum! I had spent the night in the Tulsa bus station, ticket to Claremore in my hand, more than once. Kind of stood out in my uniform.

B-A-C-K to the cold, frost-bitten, snowy campus. I knew in the court-yards there were fountains and cadets threw coins in them for luck: nickels, pennies and maybe a dime or two. I braved the bitter cold and cracked the ice on top of the fountains and cleaned them out of coins. Why the merchants in town didn't notice all my purchases were made with "cold cash" in the form of mostly pennies, I'll never know. Any way I dug out enough to subsist until I endured my 'worst Christmas ever.' I spent most days and nights listening to my records; songs such as "He Will Break Your Heart" "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" "Don't Worry" "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" "Broken Hearted Melody" "First Name Initial" "Til I Kissed You" "Save the Last Dance for Me" "I'm Sorry" "I Want to Be Wanted" I'd put on a stack and listen to them over and over and over. What'd I know about sadness?