STORYTIME TAPESTRY

The Newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world

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Dec 20, 2005? 

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Today's Christmas Stories
~**~**~**~

What I Would Like For Christmas? 

By: James A. Henson

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You ask me what I??™d like for Christmas;

If you??™ll listen, I will tell.

Oh, how I??™d like to talk to Jesus

Like the woman at the well.

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I??™d like to have the strict obedience

Of the shepherds on that night;

When the angels gave directions

To the source of Heavenly light.

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Give me the peace of Paul and Silas,

Shackled in a Roman Jail;

So I can smile through all my misery,

And not be broken when I fail.

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Let me repent like Simon Peter

When the Spirit let him know.

Let me always seek forgiveness,

When I hear my rooster crow.

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Now I don??™t want shiny trinkets,

All wrapped up in paper bright.

I just want His peace and guidance;

To help me make it through the night.

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Give me the faith of the gentle lady,

Who reached out to touch His robe;

And that elusive thing called patience,

Of a righteous man named Job.

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Give me such love for my children,

That I will always tell them so;

And yet, be wise enough to free them,

When it??™s time for them to go.

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Copyright? ? ? ? ? ? ?  ?© 2004

jhenson6@satx.rr.com

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About Me:

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I am 70 years old and I write poetry and short stories with different themes.?  I am originally from North Alabama, but have lived in Texas since 1964.?  My wife and I recently moved from Corpus Christi to San Antonio.

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~**~**~? 

? Christmas and the Wild Turkeys

? ?  by Sharlett F. Hunt

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?  My dad is very special to me.?  He is eighty-eight years young and still does as much as some in their sixties.?  He's a tough old bird with a wisdom that can only come with age.?  I can't think of anything off hand that he's unable to? do.? 

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?  He's one of the oldest living real cowboys in the state of Florida.? He? worked? herding cattle for many years, even? using his veterinary skills when needed, though he never studied medicine. ? He still wears an old cowboy hat and only takes it off when he goes to bed.? 

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?  He's retired now for many years but has a deep love for all animals that I believe is God given.?  He lives in South Florida with his three cats and his sidekick, Sara, a? retriever? mix, who is getting old and quite overweight, but guards and protects him like a young puppy.

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?  I was privileged recently to be able to visit him for a few days.?  Christmas is coming and I wanted to take him a small tree and decorate it and hopefully deliver some Christmas spirit to his small trailer in the woods.?  I didn't expect to be on the receiving end of the blessings.

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?  My loyal friend and comrade, Nelson, agreed to drive me the fifty miles or so to my dad's house.?  I took my cat, Precious, of course, so she could enjoy the visit too.? 

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?  Daddy lives at the edge of a wildlife preserve and sometimes wild hogs, bobcats, and other animals come right up into his yard but I wasn't prepared for what I would get to see, though he had told me about the wild turkeys.? 

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?  The first day was uneventful, with me just being joyful of being with my dad.?  I decorated his tree and it was starting to look like Christmas in his small home.? 

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?  We talked a lot.?  I love talking to him, or rather, listening to his stories of when I was a child.?  I wasn't around my dad at times? over the years but he still remembers when I was small.?  He reminded me of the time he had a fox on a chain that we always thought was a watchdog.?  He kept snakes in pens? and my mother was deathly afraid one of us kids would reach into and get bitten so she made him get rid of them.?  We even had a baby alligator in the bathtub, long before it was illegal to keep one.?  Once, a panther made her home underneath our house and gave birth.?  I can still remember the sound of her cries in the night and being terrified.?  My dad loved all animals.

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?  The second morning I was there, it happened so quickly I wasn't even aware of it until my dad motioned for me to come over to the window.?  It was so quiet, almost magical, when I looked out and the yard was filled with about forty wild turkeys.?  I stood there, I am sure with my mouth open, watching these lovely statuesque creatures? quietly scratching the ground for the corn that he puts out for them to eat.?  They? glided almost up to the window where we were standing.?  I ran to get my camera and daddy asked me not to move around a lot while I stood there trying to capture this lovely moment that I will cherish forever.?  It was awesome!

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?  They left as suddenly and as quietly as they came, going back into the orange groves which are thick around my dad's place.?  I was still standing there with my mouth open.?  I had never seen anything like that before.

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?  The next day we were visited by a pair of whooping cranes, which I believe are extinct or close to it.?  Of course, I got pictures of them too.?  They are such a beautiful bird!? 

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?  ? Then the turkeys came back and I had another chance to breathe in their beauty.?  We never think of how lovely they are in the wild when we are enjoying them for a nice holiday meal.?  Their shades of brown feathers are just gorgeous, each arranged in a finely knit pattern covering their large bodies, a sight to behold!

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?  Too soon it was time for me to go and I tried not to cry as I packed the few? belongings I had brought for my Precious and me.?  My dad will continue feeding the turkeys, not to kill, but to keep for the loveliness they bring to his life.?  He knows the hunters will get some of them but he hopes to save? the ones he can.?  I know I will never forget my Christmas with the wild turkeys and I am thankful for having had this experience.? 

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?  I believe too few of us take time to enjoy the small things in life in our busy world.?  Not many of us are lucky enough to live where there is wildlife roaming free as my dad chooses to live.?  I remember many years ago when he hatched tiny quail eggs and they roamed about in the grass in his yard.?  He would put them in cages during hunting season, then let them back out to roam free when the danger had passed.? 

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?  Sometimes I believe that is what he does with me.?  He has put me under his wing at times in the past when I have needed it, holding me close till I could stand alone after all the danger was over.?  I thank my Father in Heaven for my earthly father He gave to me? and ? I will cherish him for all his remaining years.? 

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Sharlette863 @aol.com


About Me:

I was born in Alabama, the middle of seven children. At about age four we moved to Central Florida and I have lived here most of my life. I am a Viet Nam Era Veteran. I have always enjoyed writing and as I get older it seems to come more naturally to me. I believe everyone has many stories inside them and some are blessed to be able to share them.

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Christmas in the Emergency Department ? 

Julia Mendels

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This year has not been a good one for me, coping with my cousin Bernadette's Alzheimer's Disease and finally realising that she was unable to live on her own any longer.?  As her next of kin, placing her in care was a heartbreaking decision but I know it was the only one I could make.?  With one daughter in Cairns (too far away), the other, well, let's just say, at the moment, too close and not close enough, my Christmas was not shaping up to be one to remember, so when I was rostered on to work on Christmas Eve I was ambivalent.? ? 

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Our hospital auxiliary had donated two big laundry baskets of gifts for any children who might pass through the department over the holiday period.?  One of the RN's, who is a bit of a clown, was the self appointed Santa's helper.?  During my shift, we had three children through the department.?  The first was a little girl who loved the doll that she was given and managed a big smile and thank you.?  Then we had two boys arrive around the same time, the first was having an asthma attack and needed treatment and the other had fallen and injured his arm.? ?  Santa's helper was making a great performance out of feeling all the parcels to find a "good one" for the eight year old with the broken arm, tossing one aside, with the comment "Oh that's just a Frisbee, who would want a Frisbee".? ? ?  She found a great pressie for him, a friction driven truck, black and shiny.?  Wow!?  He was suitably impressed and left the department with it tucked into the sling around his arm.

Then the little one with asthma said in a quacky duck voice; "Did Santa leave a present for all of us? Cos if he did I would love the Frisbee, unless someone else wants it."

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One little five-year-old boy, happy to receive a 99c green plastic Frisbee, made my Christmas Eve.

ulia Mendels
mendelsmaison @ iprimus.com.au

About Me

My name is Julia Mendels, sixty years of
living and loving under my belt and still
slaying dragons most days, other days I
just enjoy smelling the roses. I write
simple stories of my life and my loves and
promise myself that one day I will get
serious about this writing stuff when all
the dragons have been laid to rest. I live
on the beautiful Sunshine Coast,
Queensland, Australia. I have three grown
children and three wonderful grandchildren.
I work in the Emergency Department of our
local hospital. If you want to know more
about me read my stories.

Julia Mendels aka brolgablue

~**~**~

? First Snow

Bob Shaw

There??™s always something magical about the first snow of the season. Aimee looked out the window and just stared. She looked at Ronni like she was saying ???where??™s the yard???? When it came time to go out to do her business, Ronni set her down on the ground, (she doesn??™t like to get her feet wet), she tried to pick up all four of them at the same time. It didn??™t work.

Ronni had her dressed up in her little leather jacket with fur collar from her Aunt Carol, and gold boots from her Santa outfit. She wallowed around in the stuff for a bit, then tried to bite at it. She liked it. Then she started running around in it, bunny hopping from one snow drift to another, shaking her head to throw it off, and diving in again, loving every minute of it.

She forgot all about trying to walk with those boots on. Maybe she figured out what they were all about. There were little puppy tracks all over the yard where she??™d run in circles and just rolled in it. She looked up with a funny look in her eyes. ???Momma, how??™d you do this???? Ronni finally had enough of the cold, and made her come back into the house. She promised to bring her back out later.

About a half hour later, Ronni got the cell phone call from me. I told her I was off the road in a ditch but was OK. The batteries on the cell phone went dead, and all she got was that I was off the road.

The storm hit the country part of the route pretty hard. The snow hit hard, and the temperature dropped like a rock, and the roads did a quick freeze. When I got to the area called Gravel Hill, I down shifted to low and tried to drag myself down it as slow as possible. It didn??™t work. The front end of the truck felt like it just washed out from under me, and headed for a small ravine. I tried to guide it down as best as I could, trying to make a controlled crash you might say, and ended up about thirty feet off and about fifteen feet down.

The truck slammed sidewise into a bank and ended up laying on it??™s side at about a forty five degree angle. When I smelled gas, I had to shut it down. No heater. I??™d hit the windshield with my hands when they slipped off the steering wheel, and had a crack all the way across the drivers side glass. My seat belt keep me from any serious injury, and had a couple of cuts on my fingers, but was alright. I knew I??™d be sore the next day.

A few minutes later, I heard another vehicle coming down the hill. I looked in the mirror and saw the pick up coming right for the back of the bread truck. Some how, it just grazed the corner of the truck, slammed in to the bank, went through some small trees and a fence row, and came to rest just above me. It looked pretty well totaled.

I managed to get out of my truck and asked him if he was alright. He said he was. I told him I??™d been wondering how long it??™d be before I had some company. He didn??™t know whether to laugh or cry, so he just started laughing.

We got away from the wrecks to the other side of the road, and it wasn??™t long before there were two more cars in the hole with us. About an hour after the wreck, the road trucks came by and put sand on the road. Until then, they just came by and ran the snow blade on the surface. I think all they managed to do was polish it for a nice shine. They waved as they went by. No??¦I won??™t say what I was thinking.

It was after noon before I was back on the road. I was happy to see that big wrecker with the big fishing pole on the back of it. I finally got in touch with Ronni and told her I was headed to the emergency room with a severe boo boo. She wasn??™t amused.

For the next couple of days, I passed that spot, slowly, and looked it over very carefully. There was no better place along that entire stretch that I could have safely come to rest. Another ten feet, and the truck would have hit a culvert and flipped over. Another twenty feet, it would have rolled over into a deeper hole. Farther down the road was worse yet. There was no wind, but the truck just seemed to slide off the side of the road like a giant hand had pushed it off. The other driver said he felt something like the same thing. We definitely agreed that we had some someone riding with us.

I know what I believe. I might have thought I was trying to guide the truck to a soft impact, but I think those trucks ended up right where they were supposed to go. Any farther down the road would have made a much different ending.

I don??™t care much for the Happy Holidays or the Season??™s Greetings thing. I much prefer the old fashioned ???Merry Christmas???. Ronni and I will have a bit more to be thankful for this year, and we??™d like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas. Aimee? There??™s not much of the yard she hasn??™t covered. She still thinks snow is the best thing since sliced bread.

Written by Bob Shaw CapeRabbit@semo.net

Bob and Ronni live in the Cape Girardeau, Missouri area.

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