The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story, and: A B Cedar: An Alphabet of Trees (review)

columnist Allen Trout, historian Thomas D. Clark, physician and politician Grady Stumbo, former Kentucky governor Bert Combs, and the late Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina. Many stories are traditional tall tales or updated reruns but others are developed out of recent experience. With crisp and gainful insight, John Stephenson of erea College profiles his job as a college president: "I work hard all day, but I go home and sleep like a baby-sleep two hours, wake up and cry, sleep two hours, wake up and cry." It would take a Mark Twain to improve on that comic snapper! The Reverend Herbert Banks of Uz, Kentucky, tells of a preacher who concluded a funeral sermon with these words: "What we have here is just the shell. The nut has gone on." Loyal Jones records this response of a mountain woman to a visitor who asks if there were "any Presbyterians around here": "I don't think so, but my husband traps all kinds of varmints, and he's got their hides nailed up on the barn. You can go out there and see if he got one of them." From a Knoxville wag comes the story of the man who had a kidney transplant only to discover a week later that the donor was a bed wetter. Doug Crawford of Busy, Kentucky, defines a Hoosier as "a Kentucky hillbilly who has car trouble on the way to Michigan." Some of the funniest stories are contributed by Louisville chiropodist Tim Stivers, who reports having seen a sign outside a church that read, "If you're through with sin, come on in!" Upon closer observation , Stivers could see that someone had written over it in lipstick, "If you're not through, call 854-2234." The contributors hail from the states of the Southern Appalachians, and Florida, California, Colorado, and Kansas. Kansas ? Well, the truth is that some of the humor is as flat as Kansas prairie. Indeed , a bit more shifting might have eliminated some of the yawners. But, after all, one man's joke is another man's sleeping pill. And laughs aplenty remain for the most demanding connoisseur of the absurd. The stories are framed by four essays: a useful academic analysis of humor by William E. Lightfoot, a delightful personal essay on the humor in religion by Billy Edd Wheeler, a skimpy observation on storytelling by Roy Blount, Jr., and best of all, an amusing autobiographical sketch by Loyal Jones that tells more about Appalachian people than a ton of statistics. In a time of random violence, rampant corporate and personal greed, lying in high places, disastrous oil spills, and all manner of manmade and natural catastrophes , this book reminds us that without a sense of the ridiculous-without the ability to laugh at that which we have little or no control over-we'd all go crazy by bedtime. Fortunately, as Jones and Wheeler point out, "There is no end to stories. They are constantly being generated, or old stories are being recycled to fit new situations." For example, have you heard the one about the TV evangelist who checked into .... Perhaps we'd better save that one for the next book. -Wade Hall Houston, Gloria. The Year ofthe Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1988. Pictures by Barbara Cooney. $12.95. Lyon, George Ella. A B Cedar: An Alphabet of Trees. New York: Orchard Books, 1989. Designed and illustrated by Tom Parker. $14.95. Gloria Houston and Barbara Cooney's The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree is a picture storybook gem, capturing the restrained hope and heartfelt longing of a North Carolina mountain family during the Christmas of 1918. In the style of a family recollection, the narrator retells 62 Grandma Ruthie's story of the year the village almost did not have a Christmas tree. By custom, each family provides in turn a Christmas tree for Pine Grove Church. In spring Papa and Ruthie select a perfect balsam growing on the high rocky crags of Grandfather Mountain , but by summer Papa is called away to be a soldier. Ruthie prays each night for Papa's return for...