I always liked Christmas, it was a fun season. I remember going to town and walking the snowy cold streets from store to store and listening to Christmas music playing on the outside speakers. I remember high school girls signing Christmas carols on the bus during the ride home. It seemed like such a happy time. And then there was the anticipation of gifts. I would page through the Montgomery Wards, Sears & Roebuck and J C Penney catalogues and make lists in hope my parents would buy me that special thing I wanted.
My parents on the other hand were frugal. We were a farm family in the 1960’s. There was not a lot of extra money floating around and they didn’t feel like gifts were as necessary as a young kid did. So, I learned that many of those dreams were only going to come true if I took care of them myself.
What I really wanted was a snowmobile. So, I read snowmobile magazines and collected snowmobile literature from every dealer we visited. I tried to convince my dad that a snowmobile was a necessity out here on the farm. I couldn’t ride my horse in the winter, so there was only one way left to get around in the snow. But I might as well have wanted a space craft, because it just seemed that far out of reach.
My dad was very logical. I couldn’t argue with him and win. He said I would need to be big enough to start a snowmobile myself. He proved it by taking me to the dealership and letting me pull on the recoil cord. An eleven year old boy was just not strong enough. He intended to make me self reliant. A good lesson for a kid, but wait until you are older was a hard pill to swallow. So, I hoped and dreamed as I watched snowmobiles ride by the farm in the ditch and just did my chores every night after school.
One cold snowy December evening I was in the farrowing barn cleaning, bedding and feeding the sows. I made my spending money caring for the hogs. Kind of a little prodigal son analogy there that might have been the reason my dad assigned me those chores. I heard a strange sound outside and went out to investigate. Some times a neighbor would swing by on a snowmobile and I was always ready to run out and see it. But this time it wasn’t a neighbor, it was my dad. And he was driving a snowmobile.
It was a brand new Ski Doo Olympic 12/3. It was beautiful. I wasn’t sure of the circumstances but it was looking good, very good. My dad explained to me that the 12 stood for the horsepower and the 3 indicated that it was a third lighter than the other models. That way I could wrestle it out of a snowbank when it got stuck. And it had a decompressor button, so a young kid like me could start it. Suddenly, I was the king of the world. He explained that I would have to pay for it if I wanted it and we went to the First National Bank in West Concord the following evening and I signed a loan for $600.
When you are a kid with a tough, rugged old farmer for a dad, you don’t really expect much for a show of affection from him. But he found the snowmobile that would work for me and made it possible for me to have it. When I didn’t imagine it would ever happen. He had been looking out for me the whole time. What a parent does for their child means more than words. It was the best Christmas ever.
