2004 Entries
2003 Entries
2002 Entries

2002-12-21 - 10:32 a.m.

When I was a kid at Christmas sugar plums never danced in my head. Visions of toys filled my head.

I couldn’t wait for Christmas morning. In the mountain of brightly wrapped gifts under our tree would be several packages for me. Toys always topped my list to Santa, and I knew many of the packages held playthings. Every day I would examine and shake the presents, fantasizing about this toy or that toy, struggling with the urge to sneak off to my closet and tear into the package and discover all the fun that lie ahead.

Mom always made sure a significant number of sensible things were also under the tree. Baby dolls and frilly little school dresses and a red wool winter coat, a white, fuzzy muffler and beret. These gifts might have been necessary and sensible, but they got shoved aside in my excitement to mine for toys. Poor Mom thought baby dolls were toys, but the really terrific toys were the ones Dad picked out.

From the collection of toys each year there was always one I enjoyed more than the others. The ball glove or the Walkie Talkies or the Daisy BB Rifle or the miniature building blocks, or the HO Train. The joy was these were toys Dad and I could play with. Anything we could play together became my favorite. After the frenzied opening of gifts, Mom would leave for the kitchen to prepare Christmas dinner, and Dad and I would turn the living room into our playground. Many Christmas meals were lukewarm by the time we tore ourselves away from playing to sit at the dining room table.

I still have most of my favorite toys. My first ball glove, the leather gritty and brittle, is on a shelf in my bookcase. A fort of building blocks sits in a corner of the loft--the original container is in the closet. The HO train set is displayed in my basement party room. Unfortunately, over time, the large countryscape Dad and I constructed as a display for the train had to be dismantled. My Daisy BB rifle hangs from a hook in the garage.

As a kid it would’ve been hard for me to pick a favorite from the countless gifts I had received. All these years later, it’s easy. It was something Dad built for me.

Late one fall, Dad and I began building DoddleBug, our boat, in the garage. A small, 14-foot v-bow, she was to be our Queen Mary. She was red and white, and Dad designed and painted a white doodlebug on her bow. As Dad crafted the wood and applied coats of fiberglass, and I tinkered with odd scraps of wood, we’d plan our boating adventures. That Christmas he gave me my own DoodleBug, complete with a small, battery operated Evinrude motor.

Following that Christmas and the completion of our big boat, we spent several summers on the lake with both DoodleBugs. Mom would pack a picnic, I’d pack my little boat, Dad would trailer DoodleBug and we’d spend warm summer evenings and weekends fishing and swimming and running my little DoodleBug through the calm waters of a back cove.

I loved my DoodleBug then, and I love her now.

Previous -- Next