1965...

Six in 1965. Life in the U.S., at least at that point was still pretty much a "Leave it to Beaver" kind of scenario. I remember every Sunday evening, around 8 O'clock, getting in my cowboy themed PJ's and watching the very popular TV show, "Bonanza" on NBC. Idyllic, cozy, warm. But all of that was to end, both for our country as well as for me personally.

Trouble was brewing. The civil rights movement, long over due, was about to set our civic world afire in a cry for justice that had long gone unheard. The hippie movement, the anti-war riots that would shatter college campuses all over was yet to come. But in my house, my warm, red brick laden home, my parent's were on the verge of a nasty divorce that would rend our family in two, sending the three kids into a decade of restless wanderings and uncertain outcome. My mom would end up with custody, but lacked any true ability to support this new family of four, save her monstrous determination and unwillingness to give up. Amazing lady.

But as I lay in front of our black and white TV set, late November, 1965, all that was in the future. So, with all my family around me, I watched and laughed at the hapless misadventures of Charlie Brown, in his now classic "A Charlie Brown Christmas." So there we were, at least in my dreamy memory, laughing, enjoying, but then falling oddly silent when Linus began to speak about the true meaning of Christmas. You know the speech, straight from the Gospels..."and there were shepherds abiding in a field, keeping watch over their fields by night..." Great speech, but a mystery to my six year old mind.

2007. Here I sit, listening to the same speech, told by Linus himself, in our cozy, warm home, with, well, no one around me. Hmmm, one daughter is out studying with friends, the other is studying in her room. So I am alone listening to voices from my past, some of them recorded on tape and playing on the satellite connected TV, some of them solitary, known only to myself, speaking the secrets of a family, a life gone past, four decades long.

Everything has changed. My parents have long ago moved on in their lives, my brother and sister have created families of their own and, I guess, moved on as well. I have moved on, too, and thank God, really, THANK GOD!

But not everything has changed, for I am still looking for magical stars in the Eastern sky, angels singing in the fields and a baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes who would save my dad, my mom, my sister, my brother, and me from the terror of a future we could not predict, let alone control.

He did it once, I am betting he can and will do it again.

Gloria in excelsis deo