Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

December 27, 2007

Today’s Announcement

The Latest on Matt’s Mom is that she has kidney stones, please continue to pray from her recovery.

Dear Carol,

My prayers are with Matt, his Mother and you for all of the situations that you have mentioned.  I am thankful to report that my breast biopsy was negative.

We have to wait upon the Lord but sometimes it is difficult to do so but hang in there my dear.  He is still on His throne watching over His children.

Lovingly,  Mom normie xo

*** The owner of our two mystery poems, God’s Decorating and Gift of Love is none other than our precious Leonia Ebling***

The Christmas Contest is under way, everyday I will add stories and poems that were published so far, if your work has not yet been published it will not show on this page until it does.

Christmas is just around the corner and most of you have already started to think about Christmas gifts for this season.  Why not help out Storytime Tapestry with its ongoing commitment to provide you with free wonderful stories and poems daily by purchasing the publisher’s newest book for someone special on your holiday gift giving list this year.  Angels Watching Over Me can be published through lulu press in both hard copy and e-book.  Just click on the link: Angels Watching Over Me

Important notice: Storytime Tapestry is a free e-zine, however donations are always needed to help with the operating expenses of running the newsletter and to keep Storytime Tapestry the quality newsletter you are so accustomed to.   You can make your donations to paypal at: winterose@videotron.ca, or if you would prefer to use the mail system contact the publisher at the same email address: winterose@videotron.ca

Today’s Christmas Stories

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ALMOST AS CLOSE AS YOU CAN GET TO THE NORTH POLE

By David Wainland

So, here it is, Christmas Eve 1960 and I am stuck in the crater of an extinct volcano. Outside the snow is skaty-eight feet high and its dark. As a matter of fact it is dark almost all the time. December in southern Alaska leaves a lot to be desired. Right now we are down to two hours of daylight and two hours of twilight. Its twelve noon the sun is setting in one hour and I have not been out of the main building since the end of October.

Cape Newenham Air Force Station, and what a great place to be for the Holidays, at least I am off today, but I will have to work tomorrow. That is only fair because I am Jewish and this lets one of my crewmates off for the Holiday.

Right now I am having a sandwich in the NCO club and thinking about a beer. Any other place and I would be having second thoughts about tossing down a cold one when it’s twenty below, but since I’m not any place else I order it.

“One’s all you get,” says the bartender an off duty sergeant, “The Major wants all off duty and non essential personnel assembled in the rec.-hall at one o’clock. He’s having an open ranks inspection.”

“Not on Christmas Eve,” I moan, “My one day off and he is going to be handing out gigs.” (Punitive points that accumulate until you draw a punishment)  “Where the heck is his Christmas spirit?”

So I finish my sandwich and beer and head back to my room to clean up for the inspection. My roommate is doing the same only he is grumbling twice as much. He has not seen his wife and kid for eight months and he is missing them to the point of depression. Many of the guys here are in the same boat, their wives and loved ones a few thousand miles away. For me it is just my folks and my brother and sister, but I can deal with that. For the rest, Christmas is not a joyous time on a remote duty station. We have already had a fistfight or two that have gone unreported.

The assembly buzzer sounds and along with sixty or so other airmen we head to the recreation hall. There is not one smile in the bunch, but that changes a bit when the commander greets us as the doors open dressed in a Santa suit. There is a big decorated artificial tree (No way to get a real one out here in the boondocks) and around the base are dozens of gift-wrapped boxes.

The Major has quietly contacted all of our families and arranged for the gifts to be shipped to his attention and one by one he calls us up and hands them out. Some of the boys (They are boys now, not men) are crying and some are laughing. All are having the best Christmas they can remember. Over the loud speaker songs are playing, each one dedicated by the families or friends of all the men on the base. It takes all night and most of the next day to get that done, still no one sleeps until they hear their name.

Here, close to the North Pole where Santa begins his ride. He paused to give some lonely Airmen a Merry Christmas.

David Wainland

Visit my home page.

http://360.yahoo.com/davidwainland

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Christmas Poetry Corner

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Song on site: "I Wonder as I Wander."

A Soldier’s Bright Christmas Star
by Gary Jacobson © December 2005
http://namtour.com/christmaswar.html

I stare at a light shining in distance so far
O’er bloodletting fields this Christmas war star
Glowing o'er poor on'ry soldiers like you and like I...
I wonder as I wander, have I come here to die...
As Jesus had to die...
Out under the sky?

Have I come to bring joy to this world
To sow seeds of peace, democracy, or enmity unfurled?
Fading Christmas joy reminds me of what I’ve got...
And what I’ve not!
No Santa Claus, no reindeer not one single snowman in sight
No Christ child nativity scene to proclaim the way right.

I dream of a snowfall laying blankets of white
Changing “the world” to wintertime bright
Bubbling with all the music, elves and goodies I can conceive
That once-a-year magic called Christmas Eve.
Tis silver bells I hear with mirth joyfully ringing
Heavenly choirs of sweet peace singing...

But not in Nam ... for a soldier just nineteen years old
Huddled in my foxhole trying to act bold
Joyous heralds of the skies jitter before jaundiced eyes
Dreams jaded by too many a traumatized surprise
Waiting for Santa, my very world split by thunder
My sweet-and-sour life turning on itself bipolar.

And I wonder if Jesus had wanted for any wee thing,
A star in the sky, or a bird on the wing,
Or all of God's angels in heav'n for to sing,
He surely could have it, 'cause wasn't he the King?
But I'm just a mortal soldier, a groundpounding grunt
A pawn of fetid war, a point of the spear catamount.

Do you hear what I hear ... on this midnight clear
Carol of the bell’s ringing, mortars singing?
And if Charlie pops up his small and sprightly elfin head
Impish or mischievous, he’s good as dead
I’ll share with him the only Christmas spirit I have to dole
My M-16, jingle bell rock ... and roll.

This traditionally festive season knee deep in gladiatorial fear
Soldier boys forlorn gather round, devoid of Christmas cheer
In place of sugar plums dancing in their head
Dreams of horrible death dance instead
War’s organized chaos of the killing deed bled red
That into this random war gung-ho naive boys led.

I patrol on Christmas day, samo-samo, through jungle holly
Humping like any other day in humanity’s folly
Silently humming Christmas tunes lively and quick
Hump another klick ... or twenty, what a kick!
Ride steel birds of war o’er green tinseled valley
Mesmerized by distant firefight’s dim light dancing jolly.

It’s hard for warriors the true spirit of Christmas to receive
When they’ve lost so much they once did believe
Lost irretrievably mid demands that breed insanity
Lost the basic goodness of humanity
Where warriors kill to live ... live to kill
The circle of life waiting just over the next hill.

Boys sent to fight for “the world” with God’s own integrity
Nourished by destiny to protect home and family
But home’s nowhere near my motley foxhole stark and lonely
War’s folly affording no real Christmas joy jolly
O’er battlefields nurtured by Vietcong hosts in yuletide season
Heavenly hosts proclaim unheard celestial reason.

Soldier boys biding pain, watch solemnly that brightest star
Shining over this Christmastime war
Boys all around fighting, dying, meeting their maker
Sent into Hell’s monstrosity by war’s creator
Hopes haunted by Nam’s thousand knives sigh
War-hardened hearts quietly cry.

Stare across the miles, to “the world” so far
Sustained by faith in a bright Christmas star
Forget for one day hate’s killing barbarity
War fervor reigning o’er specters of inhumanity
What will this holy night bestow ... this sacred night,
Far and away from “the worlds” joyous Christmas light?

See wise men bearing gifts from afar in the sky
With dreams of home, my girl, my car ... wondering why?
I must evade thoughts of irate hate, moldering out there
Try to think good thoughts of peace and love to share.
Make steeled resolution’s promise, “I will survive!
I will arise as a man from war’s desolation ... alive!”

Walking this sweet-and-sour land on Christmas day
Staring wearily wary still in the heat of the fray
Still possessed by vision of the Christmas war star
Touching the shrapnel scar earned in this war
I wonder as I wander...
How high from God's heaven a star's light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall.

************

You've asked for a book of my poems ... well, here it is ... entitled "My Thousand Yard Stare."  with over two hundred full color pictures and graphics in this book of my comrades-in-arms, and other battle pictures with some of my most popular poetry, that many veterans tell me is healing for the veteran's soul.

Buy it instantly at, http://namtour.com/marketplace.html with the security and ease of PayPal or credit card  ..or if you want it signed by the author, tell me!

Books make great gifts for that special veteran, or for those that need to know.

Gary
Gary Jacobson

"Vietnam Picture Tour," http://namtour.com/namtour.html A walk in "the park" grunts called Vietnam, with the 1st Air Cavalry on combat patrol. Experience chilling reality to leave the sweet and sour taste of "the Nam" pungent on your tongue, the smell of "the Nam" acrid in your nostrils, and textures of "the Nam" imbedded in you as though you were walking beside me in combat.

My poignant poems directory, pictures and artwork to show the essence and feeling of war on young "boys next door," http://namtour.com/nampoemsNpix.html

Realm Of Poetry," http://namtour.com/P/RealmOfPoetry.html Poems of love and romance, spirituality and meditation, Golden Oldies, comedy, Quests of the regal knight Richard Lionheart to the crusades and seeking the Holy Grail, dueling dragons, frolicking fairies, and comedy....and also links to my site of riding that bestial ogre called war...

~**~**~

Readers Feedback

~**~**~

Here are the Published Christmas entries to Date.  If you want to review the stories or poems before voting which will come only at the end of this contest, just go to the archives:  http://archives.zinester.com/98907

Stories

Name                    Story                                                 Date

Williams, Cheryl           Christmas: Look forward to it ….         December 20

Haley, Ellie Braun         A Christmas Story                                December 20

Bryant, Sharon I Walked The Halls                               December 21

Bryant, Sharon Believing                                               December 21

Lock, Joyce                 Abbreviated Christmas             December 21

Smith, Michael  Memory Tree                                       December 22

Walker, Bill                  Mary Did You Know?              December 22

Levine, Arthur              The Troubled Geese At Christmas        December 23

Walker, Bill                  Christmas Lights                                   December 23

Mazzella, Joe                Christmas Gifts                         December 23

Wilson, Mary               Through the Eyes of Mary                     December 24

Walker, Bill                  Jesus and Santa                                    December 24

Colasanti, James           An Angel In Between                            December 25

Walker, Joe                  The Two Sides of Christmas                 December 25

Dowd, Helen                Tintagel The Forest Angel                     December 26

Walker, Bill                  The Christmas Gift                                December 26

Wersterfer, Clara          No Christmas Presents             December 27

Wainland, David           Christmas Doesn’t Get Any Better       

                                    At the North Pole                                 December 27

Poems

Name                    Poem                                                 Date

Cardinal, Conrad          Make a Wish Come True                                 December 20

Cardinal, Conrad          Why?                                                               December 20

Ebling, Leonia             A Gift Of Love                                       December 21

Ebling, Leonia               God’s Decorating                                             December 21

Meeks, Carol               Joseph’s Example                                             December 22

Meeks, Carol               Stable Born King                                              December 22

Meeks, Carol               Come Into Our Christmas Parlor                       December 23

Costner, Joan Clifton    Can’t Take Christmas                                       December 24

Costner, Joan Clifton    Our Boys Are Coming Home                            December 24

Costner, Joan Clifton    There’s More                                                   December 25

Pringle, Sandra Lewis Poem For Children                                             December 26

Jacobson, Gary            A Soldier’s Bright Christmas Star                      December 27

Here is our Storytime Tapestry Angels: Also, I would like to thank those of you who chose to be a silent angel and gave an anonymous donation to keep Storytime Tapestry up and running.

Clara Westerfer, Mark Crider, Rosanne Catalano, Paula Booher, Kay Seefeldt, Mariane Holbrook, Mary Ellen Grisham, Louise Nomani, Sharon Bryant, Angela Walker, Hart and Helen Dowd, Keith Ready, Ginger Morgenstern, Ellie Braun-Haley, Surinder Jandu, Bob Shaw, Carol Meeks, Charlotte Hilliard, Maria Keller