Star of Wonder II

Remember last year when I got all nostalgic about putting up my Grandpa's Christmas star, and then losers stole the bulbs out of it? Well, this year was another nostalgia trip... and I finally learned why old guys do their decorating in November.

Everything started out quite romantically. I had to take all the old reflectors off the star, which was too bad - some of them were from the 50s, when my grandfather first made the star, and the rest were ones my mom had searched forever to find - but all were either totally bent, or totally rusted, or both. I put a few in a drawer... pretty hard to let go.



I also had to re-staple the artificial pine boughs my mom put on a few years ago. We used to use real pine in Parry Sound, and it was my job to fetch it, but the artificial stuff looks pretty good and lasts longer without harming any trees.




I got that done without too much trouble, and then went through the laborious process of testing and swapping bulbs, so as to get one complete string out of a possible four...

Then I had to get the thing onto the porch roof. At that point I was walking in my dad's footsteps, up a frigid aluminum ladder, and not just because he grew up in this house. My father hates heights, but every year after my mom's father died and we inherited the star, he'd climb up on the porch roof in Parry Sound, and later Barrie, to put it up for the holidays.

Well, after last year's bummer with a ground-level star, I went the porch roof route this year as well. Which led to another nostalgic moment. I don't mind heights at all, but I do have a bad habit of doing dangerous things with no help... Just like my dad, I slipped on the icy shingles, and only managed to avoid plummeting to the street by jamming my boots into the eavestrough, which somehow stopped my backward slide.

Finally, I always remember my grandpa having a blue thumbnail from hitting it with a hammer while building stuff around his home... so I guess I was honouring his memory somehow, a little later when I walloped the hell out of my left thumb, trying to anchor the star to the roof.

This was an hour before my Saturday house concert, at about minus 12, and I was mistaken thinking I had lost all feeling in my hands. There are some words that should not be said at Christmas. I said them.

Anyway, the star is out of reach of all but the most ambitious bulb thieves, family tradition on both sides has been respected, the house concert came off okay, my thumb is healing nicely, and after all that... my Grandpa Cameron's star looks pretty darned cheery, perched on the porch roof of my Grandpa Newland's house.



Merry Christmas!