We tried to recreate the stuck tongue scene from A Christmas Story Monday when it was so cold. The Times-News flagpole is painted, so we figured it wouldn’t work so I tried a handicapped parking sign.
It didn’t work.
Maybe it needs to be a flag pole. Maybe it wasn’t cold enough.
I was glad.
- Boy survives “internal decapitation.”
- VHS to follow Beta into history.
- Obama to legalize it?
- Is wind chill factor meaningless?
- Each Christmas, I hope that the Interwebs will give me the Star Wars Holiday Special, and each year I am disappointed. Edit: OK I’m a moron. Here it is.
- Great jacket art.
- Twelve ways that porn has changed the Web.
- DOT cleared a lot of trash this year.
- State revenue down 6.1 percent.
- CNN is killing the news crawl.
- Sex in nursing homes is no longer taboo subject.
- My grandmother had a poodle. It was a wonderful dog. These people should be ashamed of what they are doing to these poodles.
- Six things you can do with your dead body.
- Zooey’s new movie is number one. Someone named Jim Carrey also appears.
- My favorite recent Onion headline.
- An American hero dies at 95.
- RIAA hopes to enlist ISPs in fight against file sharing, thereby saving on legal fees.
- When legislators attack!
- Just in time for Christmas, Hamas says its Gaza truce with Israel is over.
- Oprah to occupy newly created secretary weepy white women issues position?
- Chinese sailors fight off Somali pirates with Molotov cocktails.
- Real-life Dilbert manager quotes.
- Top 10 astronomy pictures of 2008.
A tear in the fabric of Christmas
The Russell family has an “eight days of Christmas” tradition.
Eight siblings grew up together on a farm in Caswell County. On the eight nights before Christmas, the family gathers at different houses. The oldest child hosts first. Then the second-oldest.
“This year, it’s been a little bit different,” said Marilyn James, who is now the oldest sibling.
Dennis Wayne Russell died Feb. 5. He was the oldest. The big brother. This is his family’s first Christmas without him.
His sister Dana Enoch called me earlier this month to talk about her brother. She had read a story in the Times-News about Samantha Harvell, a young woman who lost a battle with cancer, and it made her think of her brother.
Dennis was George Russell Jr. and Betty Russell’s first. He left behind his wife, Modesta Pettiford Russell, and two stepsons, Cordell and Lindale Pettiford. His younger siblings, in order, are Marilyn, George Russell III, Michael Lee Russell, Jackie Dooley, Angela Watkins, Eric Russell and Dana.
They primed tobacco together and generally stuck together. Things didn’t change as all eight grew up, moved away from their parents’ farm and had children of their own.
“You have this, you have that, but your family is supposed to be who you really have,” Marilyn told me at her home in northern Burlington this week.
She, Dana and Michael spent an hour talking about how wonderful their brother was and how much they miss him. He was their big brother, always there with advice or a little extra money. When the oil in Dana’s car needed changing recently she thought of her big brother. That’s the kind of thing he would take care of for her.
Dana became even closer with her big brother when they worked together at Holt Sublimation. She remembers being with him the day he was told he only had a few months to live. She says he was calm, a lot calmer than she was. “I’m going to be OK, just take care of Mom and Dad,” she remembered him telling her.
All three have little reminders of Dennis scattered throughout their lives. A Christmas ornament on Marilyn’s tree. T-shirts with photos of him that the family wears on special occasions. A flower that Michael named “Float,” Dennis’ nickname, after a song he liked, “Float On.”
They say they feel his presence and can’t believe he’s gone. Dana said she expects him to just walk around the corner one day.
They also say things like this:
He was very humble.
He never met a stranger.
He would give you his last dollar.
You could depend on him for anything.
When they mentioned that he would always walk away from a conflict, not strike back in anger, I wished I could do the same.
He died at 52 at his parents’ home in Caswell County with about 50 family members around him and is buried at Graves Chapel Baptist Church. Before he passed away, he had some lessons for his younger brothers and sisters. Enjoy what you have, because you never know what might happen. Live your life to the fullest and treat others as you want to be treated. Enjoy one another.
So I write today to ask you a question - if you you were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer tomorrow and you were gone in three months, what would they say about you after you were gone? What would they say about me?
Would they marvel at how caring you were? Would they say you never met a stranger? Would they say you had an impact on people’s lives? Would someone call the local newspaper and ask to have a story printed about you because the way you lived your life is something that people need to know about?
You can still make it happen.
It’s never too late to start.
City editor Brent Lancaster can be reached at brent_lancaster@link.freedom.com or 506-3040. Read his blog at brentsblog.freedomblogging.com.
- So who does the left want to give the invocation?
- Just another night at the Waffle House.
- Charlotte med school plans delayed.
- Your Dear Leader story of the day.
- Go … to … the … animal … shelter!
- Slate’s unanswered Explainers of the year.
- Lady does strange animal paintings.
- I’m OK with safety inspections, but the emissions inspections are nothing but a boon for the automobile maintenance industry in North Carolina.
- Obama cult, its official newsletter, seal the deal. In other news, “David Cassidy Today” names David Cassidy its Man of the Year.
- Should UAW have to sell its golf course before taxpayers save it?
- Gas tax will stay the same for the first six months of 2009.
- Beer myths debunked.
- Photos from the riots in Greece.
- Thirty ways to electrocute yourself.
- 2008 mug shots of the year.
- New York Public Library puts stuff up on Flickr.
The columnist, seen here with the real Santa Claus in the mid-1970s.
Spooked by the Jolly Ol’ Elf
We approached cautiously, worried that at any second, my son would have a meltdown.
A few feet behind us, a mother held a little girl with blonde curls. “I think we’re going to stay right here.”
Were we walking my son over to a doctor with needle in hand? To a dentist? Putting him in the barber chair for the first haircut from someone who is not his mother? No. It was Santa Claus. That big, terrifying, seemingly half-human creature who had scared his pants off just a year earlier.
During our son’s first Christmas season, we tried to do the Santa thing twice. He screamed bloody murder and I said we’d try it again next year. My wife, who has taken about 6,000 photos of our son since we got him, wouldn’t give up that easily. She took him to another Santa one day while I was at work.
She got one useable picture. By useable, I mean one in which his eyes were not closed and his mouth was not open midscream. You have to breathe at some point during a fit. She caught him at mid-sob.
So this year we were determined to make things copasetic between Noah and the big guy. I’ve been talking Santa up a lot this month, you know, the whole “jolly old elf” thing. I explained that a good working relationship with the man and his fellows is mutually beneficial.
So we got into the room. We moved in a little closer. A little closer still. We sat him on Santa’s lap. We held our breath. We got an adorable photo of a toddler sitting with Santa, looking as if he is in the middle of an audit.
I remember always liking Santa, though, especially because I got to see the real Santa Claus. No schlub with a fake beard and a padded suit for me. Santa Claus himself visited with children at North Hills Mall in Raleigh, N.C. during the 1970s. Maybe he had some people in Fuquay-Varina. I’m not sure why were so lucky.
Real beard. Real suit. Real twinkle in his eye. Real reindeer fur that had to be brushed from the real suit before children could sit in his lap.
It’s strange to remember the things that scared us as children. I used to watch “Hee-Haw” with my father as a boy (big surprise there, huh?). But I had to leave the room when Don Harron’s character, Charlie Farquharson, the announcer on radio station KORN, came on. He scared me to death.
One of my dad’s friends, Fred O’Neal, was also frightening. I remember him as a large guy with a deep voice. I also remember that he was terrifying.
I asked around and found that my son’s trepidation about Santa is not unusual and, for some children, it extends to anyone in a costume. Bingo, the Burlington Royals mascot. The Chick-fil-A cow. The Elon Phoenix mascot. All can be terrifying.
Toddlers are trying to figure out this crazy world. Just when they seem to get their mind around human beings and all the sizes, shapes, colors and smells they come in, here’s this guy who looks like a walking orange shag rug with eyes the size of softballs. When they think they have cows figured out, here’s one walking on two legs in a fast-food restaurant handing out coupons.
It would be the equivalent of me seeing a sasquatch out in the yard or encountering the Loch Ness Monster.
So here’s hoping that your little one is OK with the Claus. And say a prayer for us that Noah’s relationship with him continues to improve.
Maybe we’ll get a smile next time.
City editor Brent Lancaster can be reached at brent_lancaster@link.freedom.com or 506-3040. Read his blog at brentsblog.freedomblogging.com.
- Secret Service explains why it let someone throw something at a sitting president of the United States and didn’t blow his head off.
- Detroit papers cut home delivery to three days a week.
- Six insane discoveries that science can’t explain (mind the dirty language).
- The worst individual seasons by a team.
- New York City is sobering up? It’s just as well that I can’t afford to go next year.
- Secret Service code language for the Obama administration.
- Some people are being buried with their Blackberrys.
- Nuclear sliderules used to determine blast zones.
- Gifs of the Iraq shoe assaulter.
- Moon set for a close-up.
- McCrory won’t run for mayor again.
- Chair with a no-distraction hood.
- Disabled boy can keep his therapy pony.
- Small monkeys riding on dogs’ backs. Just because.
- UAW says it must change.
- The Fed still won’t say where the money is going.
- Gilmore Girls’ Lauren Graham returning to television?
