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One Mississippi Christmas, 1931
- University of Arizona Press
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141 One Mississippi Christmas, 1931 Last night, I went to Midnight Mass at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, with its Santa Fe architecture and southern Arizona desert setting conducive to memory of ancient Palestine. Its liturgy is a far cry from that which we celebrated in 1931 at First Baptist Church in Avera. This morning I arose and played “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” read by Dylan Thomas, on an old 33 rpm disc through our aging Fisher stereo, which with almost technical perfection delivers that penetrating, mellifluous Welsh voice. On the Fisher, in long family tradition, I listened to Berlioz’s haunting L’Enfance du Christ. My wife Helen and I celebrated quietly with a single guest. Then I rested, my newly inserted pacemaker beating to the rhythm of “Jingle Bells.” In 1931, the sawmills in Avera were shutting down, people were scrambling, anticipating another of America’s fabled “panics.” The name Hoover was already anathema, even for children. We didn’t know how good 1931 was, however, until 1932, ’33, ’34, and ’35 rolled around. But Christmas was still something to get excited about, to celebrate, the biggest holiday in the year for many rural Mississippians outside the birthday of Robert E. Lee. On December 23 we had already celebrated my father’s birthday. For a typical American household, birthdays were a day of festivity . But for Father the customary celebration was always lackluster, because of his arrival two days before that other Man. History had upstaged the first-born male of Charles and Virginia Hillman with a more important event: Baby Jesus. Advent. Christmas. That was the birthday for us. This year there wasn’t even time to bake a cake for Life on the Farm 142 poor Father. As was tradition, we headed out on Christmas Eve to spend the holiday with Grandpa and Grandma at Old House. We loaded the Model A Ford with presents, then climbed aboard Jitney and positioned ourselves for the ride, burrowing our warm bodies in its rear compartment to prepare for the bumpy ride over corduroy roads to Neely. Under a tarpaulin lay homemade quilts from Aunt Cannie, and under the quilts on the bed of the vehicle was an amalgam of hay, corn shucks, and newspaper, anything to cushion us against the bumps. Three excited children, little sister Jean, Elmer, and me, squeezed our bodies between the quilts and the tarpaulin. Innocent and tickled at the thought of Christmas, we were oblivious to the odor from the motor exhaust and the occasional flatulation or “poots” in our makeshift shroud. Our Model A was adapted with a “cooter shell” for a rear trunk, or boot, the door lid of which could be raised from the rear, outside, the space inside equivalent to the third tier in a modern station wagon. There was no barrier between front seat and the adapted rumble seat where we crouched, with a view out the back windows. In front, my oldest brother Bill rode between my mother and father. It was one enclosed space, capable of carrying small animals like pigs and chickens and dogs, farm cargo such as stove wood and corn, or squirming children anticipating fruitcake. This Christmas Eve the twilight air was brisk, and we had already donned our union suits in preparation for bed. “Are y’all ready back there?” Father yelled as he took out the car crank to start the motor. Over the noise of the motor we heard, “Remember, I don’t want no fightin back there, y’heah me?” his voice rising with each intonation . “We’ll be there in less’n an hour,” he said, settling behind the steering wheel. Off we motored at a speed exceeding horse and buggy, but less than that of light, on the washboard roadbed. First, we passed the Methodist church and community cemetery, the last sign of life (or nonlife) for a few miles. Downhill, reaching a speed of at least twentyfive mile per hour, Jitney bore us across the branch headwaters of Bear Creek. Then past the Smith enclave, family homesteads spaced about every quarter mile, with their simple frame houses and marginal sandy soils. There was Rufus “Ruf” and “Whiskey Kim”; Henry [54.144.81.21] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 21:09 GMT) One Mississippi Christmas, 1931 143 and “Cabbage Head” John; and “Ida’s John” or “John-Windy,” as he was dubbed because of his big frame and garrulous nature. Farther along lived...