(Reader Friendly Viewing Of Newspaper Archive
Material)
TIME MACHINE ... 1878
Forest and Stream
(Excerpt)
(A spirited former Christmas Eve on the Eastern Shore of
Virginia's Hog Island)... there was a grand fashionable ball, where all the
elite, beauty and style of Hog Island attended. Every gentleman was in full
dress, which consisted of the boots greased with shark oil until they shone
again. The ladies' costumes were short calico and homespun, with brilliant
pinch-beck ornaments. Everybody had washed their face and combed their hair for
the occasion, and it was a very respectable assemblage indeed. The festivities
soon commenced by two musicians opening the ball. They sawed persistently on
their ninety-nine-cent pine fiddles, and raised the tune, and all pitched in.
Everybody danced to suit themselves: there were no partners nor figures, but
each tried his own step in his own way. The cabin rocked and trembled from roof
to foundation-stone; but still the fiddles' strains rose above the uproar, and
the steps kept time in a rhythmical rhyme to the music. In an evil hour Edmund
had his keg brought to the room and opened. The consequence was that the fiddles
got too high and above their business to play any longer, so they dispersed
somewhere. Seeing the position of affairs, I commenced to draw the bow, and away
went the company again. I tried some weak-kneed people there that night; if
there isn't any crippled Hog Islanders it isn't because I did not try to make
them so. I let out the fastest of all known tunes on them -- the "Devils' Dream"
-- and I thought that the plastering was coming down. The natives spread
themselves, and discounted the Jardins Mablians. Then Colonel Burke became
ambitious. He must have a waltz. I played one of Strauss'; but who was he to
revolve with ? That dizzy dance had never yet reached the fashionable Hog
Islanders -- and even the ambitious maids would not attempt it; but at last one
more determined than her sisters, and carried away by Edmund's importunities,
asked him to let her see the step, and so he gyrated alone over the floor to the
tune of the deux temp I was playing. Then hurrying back he claimed her for the
dance, saying that he could easily teach her; but the fair one was dubious, and
at last to Edmund's entreaties replied, "Well, stranger, I can't; I can go the
front step and go the back step, but it will make me puke sure to turn around
so." Edmund was a changed man after that reply. He gathered up his keg and beat
out to his quarters.
Footnote: (source: Wikipedia): Hog Island.. "is a part of the
Virginia Coast Reserve of The Nature Conservancy. Starting in the mid-19th
century the town of Broadwater, Virginia was located on the southern end of the
island, but had to be abandoned in the 1930's when rapid beach erosion made its
continued existence untenable. However, many of the houses and other buildings
were floated by barge to the mainland and can be found in Willis Wharf, Virginia
and Oyster, Virginia."
(MAILBOX .. from Kathy Horney)
At Christmas time, my mind always goes back to
about 1970.
I was young (20) and doing Christmas shopping in
downtown Pocomoke City. The air was crisp and cold and a light snow was
falling. The downtown area was lit up with Christmas lights in the
storefront windows and Christmas carols were playing over a P.A. or loudspeaker
system (I don't know what the technical term is) but I remember that it was
beautiful.
At that time, you could do ALL of your Christmas
shopping downtown - didn't have to go anywhere else. There was a 'five
& dime' store, a 'dollar' store, a couple of department stores, a couple
of shoe stores, a couple of dress shops, a men's clothing store, a couple
of jewelry stores, a couple of catalog stores, a couple of hardware stores, a
couple of pharmacies, a couple of banks, and a car dealer by the river.
Just turn the corner off of Market St. and go just one block down Clarke Ave.
and there was a soda fountain shop, a couple of mom & pop grocery stores,
and a fish market (I think). There may have even been a beauty salon on Williow
St. between Second & Clarke (memory is fuzzy here). If you proceeded on to
the next block down Clarke Ave., there was a second-hand store (clothing, etc.),
a deli, and a small mom & pop clothing store. Unbelievable isn't
it? Yes, all of those businesses were in the downtown area (at the same
time).
I miss it when I get thinking about it. It
was different shopping like that than when you go into these huge chain stores
and have to fight the crowds. Whole different atmosphere - the magic of
Christmas has gotten lost in greedy commercialism. Well, maybe that's
a bit extreme, but right now I am savoring those wonderful memories of times
gone by.
P.S. You could shop without worrying about
getting your purse snatched, or getting mugged or carjacked, etc.
December, 1888 (Time Machine archive)
(Dispatch- Richmond, Va.)
Onancock, Va., December 26, 1888.
This is the mildest, prettiest, quietest Christmas ever seen on
the Eastern Shore within this generation. The weather is so mild that fires are
uncomfortable, and people are going about in spring clothing.
FOOTNOTE: A month earlier, November 26, the same area
experienced a blizzard.
December, 1941 (Time Machine archive)
Town Tavern in Pocomoke was advertising informal dancing for Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve with music by Slim Marshall's Orchestra.
Admission 75-cents per person.
December, 1970 (Time Machine archive)
The Fantastic Mystics were providing the dance music for the
public two days before Christmas at the Pocomoke Holiday Inn's annual Pocomoke
Christmas Party.
December 25, 1924 (Time Machine archive)
(The Lubbock Morning Avalanche- Lubbock, Texas)
(Excerpts)
Childhood's Christmas Memories
"Backward, turn backward, Oh Time in your flight, Make me a
child again just for tonight."
How many of us tonight are wishing that old poem might come true
just once more in our lives? Of all the days in our childhood, none stand out so
vividly in our memory as those mysterious Christmas times. There is something
about our Christmas memories that reach the heart of every one of us who were so
fortunate as to grow up in a happy home. We did not say a big, luxuriant home,
but a HAPPY HOME. A home where sympathy and LOVE, and a family understanding of
one another's hearts fills the atmosphere of the whole home. A home where each
member of the family believes in and rejoices with every other member of the
family in their ambitions and their hopes and their accomplishments. That's the
kind of home we mean when we say a happy home. It may be a humble little cottage
or it may be a mansion. It is the spirit in the house and not the shell in which
we live that makes happy homes. And it so happens that most of our happy homes
are humble homes because we have so many more humble homes in America than any
other kind.
What are your first memories of Christmas? Can you bring them
back through the long years and tell them over again to the children? There is
nothing children love to hear so well as Christmas stories of their own fathers
and mothers. "What did Santa Claus bring you when you were a little boy Daddy?" "And what
did he bring to mother?" "Did he travel then just as he does NOW? And what kind
of toys did little girls and little boys send for in those days?"
It is the unusual, the impossible, and the mysterious belief
that it will happen that puts the thrill of expectancy into the heart of the
little child at Christmas time. It is their faith in the spirit of Santa Claus
that is so beautiful.
But if the memories of Christmas time in the old home far away
are among our most treasured memories of childhood, what is our greatest
privilege at Christmas time now? Is it not storing up other Christmas memories
in the lives of our children to be recalled a generation from now when we are no
more and other little ones yet unborn are begging for Christmas stories of long
ago? This is one of our greatest opportunities and privileges for Christmas,
1924. Creating Christmas stories and Christmas memories to be retold by the
generations of fathers and mothers in 1950, 1975, and even up to 2000 after the
first Christmas story was ever produced.
...fill the childish hearts and childish minds around you with
those Christmas memories you would be proud and happy to have them carry through
their lives and tell over and over at the Christmas tides of the future to the
little heads nestled near their hearts.
Do you have a Christmas memory or other local memory
to share with PPE readers.. such as a big snow storm, a favorite school teacher,
a local happening, something of interest your parents or grandparents told you
about? It can be just a line or two, or more if you wish. Send to tkforppe@yahoo.com and watch for it on
a future TIME MACHINE posting!
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