Peppermint Pockets

It’s that time of year when I cry, more than usual, over little things—Bing Crosby warbling White Christmas, the death of a chickadee snatched by a hawk at the birdbath, and, of course, the courteous driver who let me have the last parking spot at Costco.

My weepiness isn’t new, but somehow, this year my tears are less superficial. They’re erupting from the heart, most often followed by recollections of people who in some small way saved me, just like Clarence did for George Bailey.

There was Grandma Cecelia. I’ve written about her before. Raised in an orphanage, married at 16, she worked her fingers to the bone into her seventies. On blustery, winter nights she warmed our bed socks and robes near the kerosene heaters and toasted day-old sweet rolls in the oven until the icing was melty and delicious. Bellies full, she tucked us under bedding made mostly of surplus, wool army blankets, so we were protected from the drafts that leaked through the windows laced with frost. Grandma was in the flesh and now in spirit a guardian angel.

Lonnie, the butcher, at the grocery store where I had my first real job looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy, but with a blood-spattered apron. When he laughed, his sapphire eyes sparkled with mischief and his belly truly shook like a bowl full of jelly. Lonnie taught me lessons from the school of Hard Knocks—his words, not mine.

“You’re getting a Christmas goose this year as a bonus, Heide. Sound good?”

Naïve, I shrugged and said, “Sure.”

He didn’t deliver a dead bird, but a hefty pinch on my bottom. Eyes twinkling, he scolded, “Don’t ever, accept a goose from a dirty old man!”

Lesson learned.

Through college, I cocktail waitressed in fishnets and hotpants at a Holiday Inn. (Good thing I knew about Christmas geese.) You wouldn’t think a cocktail lounge would harbor angels, but you’d be wrong. There were nights, where for various reasons, I couldn’t go home to my studio apartment with its efficient murphy bed. Maybe the reason was a snowstorm or maybe it was because my mother had left my stepfather again and she and my three siblings had nowhere else to stay. At the time, I worked four nights a week and carried 18 credits a semester.

The inn’s resident piano man, seeing I needed a good night’s sleep and some peace and quiet from the mayhem at “home,” insisted I spend the night in his comped hotel room. I don’t know where he slept, but he was back in the morning, cups of hot coffee in hand. As a result, I tear-up, any time of year, when I hear Billy Joel’s Piano Man:

Sing us the song, you’re the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody
And you’ve got us feelin’ alright.

And now, I come to Joe Pisz. I visit his grave yearly back in Wisconsin. When I was a girl, Joe was an elderly man lodging at my grandparent’s house. He shuffled about; hands stuffed in his pockets. Coins jingled and wrapped peppermints crackled. He thought my sister and I were too skinny. He also knew that my stepfather did not allow us candy. Joe didn’t agree with Dad, but Joe was an honorable man. He never gave us a treat, but whenever he stood from his easy chair and jingle-jangled away, two or four peppermints were left behind, having conveniently fallen from his pocket. My sister and I pounced on those gems like birds on birdseed.

Sugar plums don’t dance in my head, but peppermints do, and warm stale sweet rolls, Christmas geese, and a safe place to lay my head for a long, winter’s nap. My heart beats with joy and life is sweeter when I recall Grandma, the butcher, old Joe, and the piano man—my personal and somewhat unlikely angels.