My Uncle's Shoes

A Blur of Chrome and Arctic Blue

Tom Froehlich

Over the years we all accumulate our personal treasure trove of holiday memories. Some of you may have memories rivaling those of that Hallmark commercial where the older, model-handsome brother miraculously appears on Christmas Eve, joining his younger brother at the piano mid-carol, joining the family in their holiday tradition. Or perhaps, your family donned matching lederhosen while harmonizing to your own heart-wrenching rendition of, “Edelweiss”, like the family Von Trapp. 

Unfortunately my family’s holiday memories are more like Ralphie’s of, “A Christmas Story”, fame. Getting an eye shot out. The Christmas turkey being ravaged by the family dog. One of us dropping the, “F bomb”, at an inopportune moment. In fact, you could count on that one. I may or not have been the perpetrator. Fine! Cuff me and book me, Santa. It’s not as if my behavior shined like bright copper kettles the rest of the year. 

Oh, it’s not that my parents didn’t make an effort. They did. It’s only as an adult that I realize real life is a far cry from having your brother step out of a, J. Crew catalog, to join you in song while the Yule log crackles or your family yodels a tune about rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens before happily trekking through the Alps to escape Hitler. Let’s face it. That one’s kind of tough to top.

However, somewhere between being fitted for an eye patch, getting my mouth washed out with soap and having Christmas dinner at the “Lotus Palace” down on Main Street, I do have some…well, maybe not so much fond, but certainly memorable memories. The stuff real Christmases are made of. 

I remember making “cut out” cookies and decorating them with frosting, cinnamon dots, colored jimmies and those little metallic balls that tasted like you were sucking on a penny.  I wonder if they caused cancer?  Certainly doesn’t seem as if they were approved by the FDA.   The reindeer almost always lost a leg that was secured back into place with, you got it, additional frosting. 

We later switched to the more traditional gingerbread, which was also a sturdier cookie so the reindeer didn’t look like amputee victims.   So sturdy in fact, a kid could lose a tooth attempting to bite through them. Who cares? We most likely had the onset of childhood diabetes from the layers of icing Rudolph carried and the jury’s still out on the long-term effects of those decorative silver balls anyway. 

One of my most memorable memories is the Christmas of 1970. I was twelve years old and it was the year we spent Christmas at our cottage among the snow-laden pines of Door County, Wisconsin. Oh yes, I can imagine the Norman Rockwell picture you are painting. Please, keep in mind those are not the memories my Christmases are made of. Our cottage amongst the pines included a tiny oil-burning furnace that could bring the temperature up to a sweltering 60 degrees. That is, if it was actually working and the oil hadn’t frozen, blocking the fuel line. That was unfortunate because even 60 degrees felt pretty toasty after you raced in from the outhouse. You got it.  No plumbing or running water. An outhouse may look quaint in a Norman Rockwell painting, but in late December in Wisconsin, you’re just happy if you don’t end up with a ring of frostbite on your ass. 

Perhaps this is the reason it took several weeks for me and my brothers to finally convince our mom that this, Door County getaway, is what would make our yuletide gay. There was no need to convince our dad. Not because he was already enthusiastically on board. Far from it.  But, once our mom had given it the go ahead, my dad simply caved. Oh sure, he always put up a futile fight to save his honor while my mother worked her manipulative magic. It’s just the way it worked in our family. My brothers and I looked on with glee, knowing eventually, looking forlorn our dad would let his long sigh of defeat, his white flag of surrender. It’s not that he wasn’t a good sport. He simply liked a constant 72 degrees and a toilet that flushed. 

My dad maneuvered our Montego Bay station wagon, loaded with the magic that is Christmas, through the slushy tire ruts. The pine boughs were in fact laden with new fallen snow, truly a vision for a Currier & Ives Christmas card. Things were looking more than promising. This would, with out a doubt, be a Christmas to remember.  The oil burner, proved to be fully functional, ready and willing to put a warm glow on our celebration, as did the two-seater outhouse. Yup! You got it! A two-seater. Nothin’ but class for our family!

Later, tucked into our beds, in rooms paneled in knotty pine we anticipated the following day, which was Christmas Eve. We traditionally opened our gifts on Christmas Eve and our parents told us that “Santa” had a special gift planned. Being ten, twelve and fourteen we were all past the Santa stage, but our parents refused to give it up and we were happy to play along. 

The following afternoon our dad drove into town to help Santa deliver our special gift. He pulled into the driveway an hour later. Attached to the back of our Montego Bay station wagon was a trailer carrying a chrome and blue Arctic Cat snowmobile.  Even though it was explained we had merely rented it for the day, my brothers and I were crazy with excitement. Keep in mind, we were not a family familiar with experienced in the joys of winter through the 166-horse power engine of an Arctic Cat. We were more accustomed to sledding down the hill in the back of our house on a sled that had real metal runners.  You know, the kind that could easily sever a kid’s finger, cutting right through the bone like a Ginsu knife? Hey! Take a risk! Ralphie never did shoot his eye out with that Red Ryder BB gun now did he!? 

After carefully driving the “Cat” off of the trailer our dad explained to the three of us that this was not a toy and we needed to be very careful. We all nodded in complete and emphatic agreement. He explained the accelerator was on the right hand grip and the brake on the left and that you should very gently rotate the grip when you wanted to accelerate. What?! You mean we actually got to drive this thing?! Suddenly that verbal agreement of caution carried less weight. I mean really it was just a nod of the head, not an actual verbal agreement at all now was it? 

Being the oldest, my brother Rick was to be the first.  “Just a quick ‘spin’ around the cottage until everyone tries it out,” my dad instructed.  After that, we could take turns on longer rides. We all nodded once again thinking, “Come on! Let’s just get this show on the road! I gotta ride!!”

Rick climbed aboard and slowly rotated the accelerator as our dad had instructed and took his “spin” around the cottage. I was next in line and was already fantasizing about skillfully maneuvering my trusty steed through the Door County woods, the wind blowing through my hair, my cheeks ruddy with the brisk winter chill. Rick returned and was commended on his cautious control of the vehicle on his test run. I was next. Control? Well…I had some trouble wrapping my brain around that. I mean, let’s see what this baby has under the hood! I had more of an Evel Knievel experience in mind. 

I grabbed onto the handgrip and revved the engine feeling the torque of all one hundred-sixty-six horses. Squeezing the left hand grip I made a vague mental note that this was the brake, should anything get out of control. You know what a brake is, right? That’s something that stops you. Right?  A couple more revs of the engine and I let her rip like a racehorse leaving the starting gate at the Kentucky Derby. If I remember correctly, the “Cat” may have even reared up like a wild stallion. I navigated my spin around the cottage, which was probably all of thirty yards with wild abandon. As I came around to the front, a mere blur of chrome and arctic blue, I realized I was moving at a speed that may or may not allow me to successfully complete the turn and thread the needle that was the gap between our Montego Bay station wagon and a white pine with a trunk about eight feet in circumference. Simple. I’ll just give that brake a little twist and slow her down a bit. Right?! No. So very, very wrong. I don’t know about you, but the last time I checked, “brake,” meant some type of device that slowed, impeded or possibly even abruptly halted forward motion. Well, someone should have informed Arctic Cat about that.  Or at the very least, it would have been nice if someone had informed me that wasn't the way it worked on a snowmobile. Evidently the “brake”, and I truly believe to this day that word belongs in quotes, merely slows down the engine, reducing the aforementioned “torque”, and does little to nothing to slow down the actual speed of this demon on skis. It took no more than a couple of fruitless twists of this so called brake grip for me to realize I was going to continue at this dizzying speed until either I slowly decelerated or something impeded my progress, meaning crashing into either our car or the massive trunk of the white pine. I realized in short order that the odds of my “threading the needle” were remote. There comes a time in life when a man has to make some tough choices. I chose the tree. I didn't so much crash directly into the tree as strongly grazed the side of the trunk bringing my trusty steed to a halt as one of the skis came loose, soaring into the heavens, rendering this death machine inoperable. To this day, I believe I made a sound choice.  Perhaps others disagree.

As I mentioned earlier, my family was not very well versed in the world of recreational vehicles. My dad wasn't aware that the Arctic Cat's skis came equipped with a safety release designed for the very purpose of your enthusiastic yet idiotic twelve-year-old kid running into a pine tree. Even after he was informed of this safety feature when he returned our “special gift” to the rental place after a full fifteen minutes of Christmas joy, he decided we had flirted with disaster once this holiday and once was more than enough.  My younger brother Billy never would get a chance to take a spin on this death machine. I think it is quite evident I saved him from a crippling and very possibly fatal mishap. Hey what are older brothers for?

So you can have your Yule logs and lederhosened “la, la, las”. I will happily take my family with all of its perfectly dysfunctional imperfections. I can pretty much guarantee you my older brother and I will not be caroling by the fire this Christmas, but guess who drove for three hours through a snowstorm to surprise me the airport when I flew back to Wisconsin from California two days ago? My brother, Rick. It seems he is no longer holding a grudge regarding that unfortunate Arctic Cat mishap. And if that’s not a Hallmark moment, I don’t know what is. 

Happy Holidays!