RSS | 
Twitter
| 
Be a fan!
Holiday season summons the ghosts of Christmas trees past
It was the size of a large birthday cake, made chiefly from two large steel discs, one placed about eight inches above the other. On the bottom disc was anchored an electric motor. The motor was connected to a spindle that turned, and through friction, caused the top disc to turn. On the top disc was welded a tube - a sleeve - to hold the trunk of the tree. He plugged the motor in and the top disc turned, turning the tree.
Unfortunately, to go with his inventive streak, my father was also, quite possibly, the cheapest man on the planet. He did not believe in spending good money on a dead tree. And so, each year, the tree placed into that rotating stand, season after season, was the last and worst tree on the lot.
It was, first and foremost, bent in some drastic way. The trunk took all sorts of odd angles. Because it had slept on its side for the better part of a month in a parking lot somewhere, our tree also usually featured a tremendous case of bed head. One side was almost completely flat. This would be fine in most cases; the family stuck with this loser of a tree could just place the bad side nearest the wall.
Rate This Story:
1 the lowest - 5 the highest
Current rating:
We had, after all, a rotating Christmas tree stand.
This assured that everyone visiting would see the tree's defects from all 360 degrees. By the time it was fully decorated, it looked as if we had placed a deformed Las Vegas showgirl on a lazy Susan.
His frugality was legendary. Once, Dad bargained with a tree seller, offering to take the last two losers from the man's lot for a buck. Each was diseased. Neither had enough branches.
He dragged the two trees home, holed himself up in the basement, chose the tree with the better of the two twisted trunks and began to drill holes. He then sawed branches off tree No. 2 and stuck them onto the holes in the trunk of tree No. 1. After the reconstructed tree was placed in the rotating tree stand, a branch fell out of its hole.
My mom shook her head and lit a Lucky Strike.
Dad sent me to the store for Elmer's glue. "The good kind," he said. "For wood!" Sure, I thought, he would spend the money for the good kind of glue but not for the good kind of tree.
Once it was all glued together, secure in its stand, rotating, blinking and bending, it was always the best tree we had ever had.
What he failed to spend on a tree, he more than made up for with the presents that were stored underneath. It took years for me to understand his true inventive genius.
Maybe he wasn't that cheap after all.
To hear Scott Paulsen's column, visit www.observer-reporter.com. He can be heard each weekday afternoon from 3-7 p.m. on 1250 ESPN Radio.
