---

IN THIS ISSUE

• Dixie Augusteijn resumes her interrupted story of a recent trip
• Zvonko Springer continues his description of a typical winter holiday
• Irene Harvalias recalls her happiest Christmas
• Elsie Ayers remembers a wonderful birthday party
• Dick Monaghan reflects on the meaning of the holidays
• Barbara Wear sends a story about Grandma and Santa Claus

Dixie Augusteijn has just reached Anchorage on their

ALASKA/YUKON TRIP

We liked Anchorage - a very clean city, vibrant, and with flowers on all the lamp posts. They told us in winter the flowers are replaced by lights, giving the place names of City of Flowers and City of Lights. There was a lot to see. But we wanted to take the Kenai Fjord cruise from Seward - our next stop - and we found it only went on certain days and - remembering Denali - we booked for the following day to make sure, and decided to leave exploration of Anchorage to our return. Anchorage to Seward was the only part of the trip where we had to retrace our route.

The three-hour trip to Seward skirts a long narrow inlet, it looked only about a half kilometer in width. I remembered stories of Alaska´s earthquake a few years back and could now picture the resulting tsunami which surged up this inlet, leaving so much destruction.

About half way to Seward a road off to the left pointed us to Girdwood, which according to the Milepost was a good place to stop for a snack. The resort, backed by high mountains, could have been in Bavaria - the same type of architecture, with flowers everywhere. Fuschias of every colour and size hung from doorways and draped the balcony. Dahlias, some the size of dinner plates, hedged round an outdoor patio, a perfect spot for a cup of hot soup and coffee. Ringed by flowers, wouldn´t you know that was when the battery in my camera went dead. Chris took some with his camera, but he didn´t have a macro.

In Seward we found a spot by the water and almost next to the ship we would take the following day through the Kenai Fjords. It is along the Kenai Fjords that the Pacific plate plunges and subducts underneath the North Atlantic plate, thus dragging the mountains closer to the sea. This accounts for Alaska´s earthquakes. I read there are up to 25 quakes a day, though all but a few are too minor to feel. These fjords were carved out by the retreating glaciers and glaciers are still still doing their work. The largest ice field in the United States is in this park.

The next day was overcast but we saw many glaciers making their way down to the sea. Friends the previous year had seen one of the huge glaciers break off and drop with a thundering splash, but we were not so lucky. And we did not see any whales. Sea otters and, in another spot, sea lions were lounging on rocks, but they were at a distance. High up on the rocks were several military outposts - a reminder of the Cold War - and I thought what a lonely spot to be stationed and wondered how in the world they got there - it must be by helicopter.

One thing we all remembered from that cruise was the lunch. It was a buffet and both salmon and roast beef were offered. We were going to pass up on the beef, but luckily took some of both. The salmon was good, but the beef was superb! It was Alaska-grown and there must be something special about Alaska pasture to give it that special flavour and tenderness. I have not tasted beef like that since I was a child. We still talk of that beef.

The Sea Aquarium headed the list for the next day. It is huge, with the Kenai Mountains and Resurrection Bay as a backdrop. For some years the idea had been batted around of an aquarium with research facilities to study the declining population of the Stellar sea lions, fur seals, and some sea birds. But when millions of gallons of oil spilled into Prince William Sound and veterinarians and scientists traveled to Seward to help in the rehabilitation of oiled otters and birds, they stressed the need for a marine mammal research and rehabilitation centre.

Exxon, in expiation of their guilt, put up most of the money; other money and the land were donated, and it is hoped enough visitors will be attracted to pay for ongoing expenses. This was the first large sea aquarium I have seen, and to my eyes it seemed to have everything, from king crabs to sea lions to sea birds. I have several pictures taken in the aquarium and the sea lion, in particular, seemed to know just how to pose to get his best ´profile´. A marine John Barrymore!

After the aquarium we drove the same three-hour route back to Anchorage and to the same RV park by the railway tracks. We would stay two days in Anchorage. We wanted to visit the Indian cultural Centre and the museum, and Chris and Elizabeth wanted to do the shops.

To be continued.

Zvonko Springer and his wife have reached their room on their typical

WARMING UP HOLIDAY ON KENYA´S COAST

We are both totally exhausted, so after eating most of the fruit provided, we have a shower and then nap until one of us wakes up. We have another shower, and I shave, and then we are ready for our holiday to begin.

Afternoon tea is served on an open terrace partly in the shade of the setting sun. There we meet several guests from previous visits and are greeted by few well-known waiters who rush to find a table for us. Later we descend to the beach to greet the beach superintendent and check whether the long chairs are reserved for us at "our" coral cove. We are greeted by staff members along our route all the time. At last I go to the computer "shop" to send e-mails home about our safe arrival, while Ljiljana goes to a local shop to purchase bottled water, etc. After this we will be back to the room just in time to get dressed for dinner.

Dinner is served in the restaurant, with a choice of a la carte or buffet. Three times a week dinners are served on the wide open terrace. The menus change slightly, with titles like African or Italian or German, bur the differences are minor. The choice of fruit and sweets is always the same, including ice creams specialities. Breakfast is always served in the restaurant that has open louver windows and few doors that have to be watched for any unwanted guests such as monkeys.

From now on the daily routine of our warming up holidays goes its normal way for the next 20 days.

I could summarize this routine as it changes only slightly, depending upon the changing tides. We have breakfast around 9 a.m. but will get up earlier, say at 7, if there is enough sea for a morning swim - the best time. After breakfast we descend to the beach and stay under our umbrella until teatime at 5 p.m. The first three to four days, we keep to the shade. We use a good sun protection lotion, and go to swim dressed in an old shirt. At 2 p.m. we take a light lunch at the nearby Cove buffet, where coconut trees and a pleasant breeze are relaxing for the tired traveller. During low tide, we cannot swim in the sea; we can sit in a coral bath tub where water temperature can get up to 40ºC. In January the sea temperature is around 30ºC, and a bit less in the morning.

The tidal movements on the East African coast have a considerable influence on our daily schedule. The maximum difference between low and high tide amounts to about 3.3m that occurs every 14 days. We adjust our daily itinerary accordingly. The coolest part of the day is the morning, and it gets hotter later when the temperature may reach 35ºC. If the wind from the sea stops, then it becomes rather sticky and the humidity gets over 90%. During the nights the wind direction changes and evenings are always hotter. When we are going to sleep, we switch on the air-cooling blower as well as the slowly rotating ceiling ventilator. The balcony door has to be shut and the first hour or so it is rather sticky in the room. Sometimes during the night, the blower stops, so then we lie in bed perspiring a great deal. We console ourselves that this is part of the warming up procedure too.

To be concluded.

Irene Harvalias remembers her

BEST CHRISTMAS EVER

My parents had divorced when I was four, and I hadn´t seen my mother for nearly two years. I missed her terribly, but I had a terrific nanny, and my dad was wonderful.

One day, in the early hours of school, the drone of planes went by overhead, and then the bombs fell! Greece was at war, and the Italians came and bombed Patras where I lived.

We left helter-skelter and gathered at my great-aunt´s farm until my aunt´s chaufeur drove down from Athens and picked us up - my Grandma, Grandpa, uncle Basil and me - and took us to Athens. I was reunited with my mother and went to live with her and her new husband. it was the end of October....

We found a school for me - it only had grades one and two at the time, and I was in grade one - and the next couple of months went by very quickly. Suddenly, it was Christmas. In Greece, Christmas is more of a religious celebration, but New Year´s, which is St. Basil´s day, is when you get your presents - St. Basil brings them!

My mother had put up a tiny artificial Christmas tree - about two feet high - and decorated it with lovely hand-blown glass ornaments and real candles. I went to bed with great anticipation, wondering what St. Basil would bring to me.

When I woke up, I found a note next to my bed. I could read already, and read the instructions eagerly. I went to where the note had directed me, and there was yet another note - with more "clues" ... and so it went for quite a while, having me running from one room to another and finding clues which lead to more clues, and FINALLY - I found a present!

It was a doll - a boy doll made out of celluloid - and in a separate parcel there were three suits of clothing (made, I later learned, by my step-father´s niece), one of which was a pair of black velvet long pants, and a silk shirt, and the rest were "play" clothes. I immediately named the doll "Yannis", after my step-father, and proceeded to find more presents - mostly books, which I loved - until the last present and clue said that this was the end.

I remember that Christmas as if it had happened yesterday, instead of sixty-six years ago. It was the middle of the war, we had blackouts and air-raids, we were cold and hungry, but I had found my mother again, and it was the best Christmas EVER!

Elsie Ayer fondly remembers

MY HAPPIEST EARLY BIRTHDAY PARTY

It was to be my fourteenth birthday. I was fully grown in all respects and my Mother and my Father`s sister, Jennie, thought I should have a real birthday party and invite my girl friends from Jr. High School. Folwell Jr. High was a new school, and the pride of the city, with the latest cooking and sewing laboratories. We students realized we were very fortunate to be able to attend such a modern school in Minneapolis. The school also attracted the best teachers, or so we were told. (A few of those teachers we wondered about.)

Mother and Aunt Jennie wore matching aprons that matched their dresses. At the time this was high style for a housewife. My mother was an excellent seamstress and had spent days making their matching outfits, that were identical except for the cotton print material. They were both starched and crisp and looked like other Scandinavian ladies that I knew. Both of them were so cute in their lace-up front Emma Jennick Sunday shoes and nylons. I was sure they had both laced into their Sunday girdles for this big event.

We had the traditional birthday party given toward the end of the great depression. Ice cream was a treat, not something you had often, partly because of price, and partly because most families still had old-fashioned ice boxes. Our iceman delivered our ice every other day, that is if we remembered to put the ice sign in the window. My mother made the birthday cake, carefully decorated by hand with tiny rosettes and, of course, "Happy Birthday Elsie 14" in the middle. We even had nut cups and little sandwiches cut triangularly. When the girls arrived, we played old-fashioned games with simple prizes. We giggled and laughed, just happy to be together.

Our little cottage that I loved so much was covered with grape vines across the front screened porch. There were only four rooms. We had a fat ornate coal stove in the dining/living room of the house. When used as a dining room, the round oak table that I used to study on was brought from my room and placed in the middle of the room. This was the warmest room in the house in the winter, with the coal stove, shined up and sporting isinglass windows, which glowed invitingly at night.

My birthday was the first week in April, so the stovepipes had not been taken down to be stored and cleaned. Scandinavian-style, there was always a pot of coffee on the back of the coal stove in case anyone wanted a cup of coffee.

Aunt Jennie was quite stout and portly around the middle. Toward the end of the party, my Mother asked her to please get the coffee pot so they could each have a cup of coffee with their birthday cake. Aunt Jennie quickly complied, but instead of reaching for the pot as we all did, she tried to get behind the pipe by the wall. Well, she got stuck, and I mean really stuck. We took turns trying to pry her out gently while trying not to pull out the stovepipe, which was full of winter soot. None of the other girls had either a coal stove or a rotund cheerful Aunt Jenny. We all laughed and helped, pulling or pushing gently until she was released.

At my fiftieth High School Reunion in Minneapolis, a friend reminded me of the wonderful time we had at my fourteenth birthday party. I thought that was remarkable.

Dick Monaghan muses on

HOLIDAYS

Let´s consider the holidays and how they began, undoubtedly as a result of the embarrassing fact the earth wobbles on its axis, causing the seasons and making the sun appear to disappear slowly after June 21.

This frightened and annoyed primitive man, who responded in the only logical fashion, by sacrificing virgins around the shortest day of the year, Dec. 21. And it worked! The sun came back!

As mankind matured, an especially smart, shaggy-haired intellectual, speaking in a thick accent I can´t duplicate, suggested that throwing virgins away was too expensive - they were worth more in inter-tribal trade.

"Let´s just have a hairy-mammoth of a party for a week or so, ending with the New Year´s Day. We can have jousting or armed combat in the arena. I´ve invented something called ´conspicuous consumption,´ (the title was later usurped by Adam Smith) which will allow us to use our surplus labor to make presents, which we will give each other."

And so it was for many years - until the Christians undid the Romans and stole their feast, insisting it was Christ´s birthday. (They had no clue as to the actual event. Missing facts never stop True Believers.)

The early Christians had no sense of humor or fun. (Many of them, including the Puritans, outlawed Christmas.) Still, the weather was dreary and dark in the winter, and people needed some whoop-de-do. They borrowed the Christmas tree from the Germans and we were off to today´s madcap galas: shopping expeditions that resemble Mongol hordes raiding cities, Christmas parties that sometimes outdo the Romans ("You did too promise to take me to Aruba - right after you said I was too pretty to spend the rest of my life in a cubicle!") and hang-overs that make death seem a little less unattractive.

With it all, though, most of us manage to make it all worthwhile - old friendships renewed, some genuine gratitude, some anonymous charity, some resolutions that actually stick.

And the sun is still returning.

Barbara Wear sends a familiar story, but if we can listen to A Christmas Carol every year, we can read this story again:

SANTA AND AN ADVENTURE WITH GRANDMA

I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid.

I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: "There is no Santa Claus," she jeered. "Even dummies know that!"

My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her world-famous cinnamon buns. I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said so.

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me. "No Santa Claus!" she snorted. "Ridiculous! Don´t believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad. Now, put on your coat, and let´s go."

"Go? Go where, Grandma?" I asked. I hadn´t even finished my second world-famous cinnamon bun.

"Where" turned out to be Kerby´s General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days. "Take this money," she said, "and buy something for someone who needs it. I´ll wait for you in the car." Then she turned and walked out of Kerby´s.

I was only eight years old. I´d often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.

I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church. I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker.

He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock´s grade-two class. Bobby Decker didn´t have a coat. I knew that because he never went out for recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all the kids knew that Bobby Decker didn´t have a cough, and he didn´t have a coat.

I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat! I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that.

"Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down.

"Yes," I replied shyly. "It´s ... for Bobby."

The nice lady smiled at me. I didn´t get any change, but she put the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) and wrote, "To Bobby, From Santa Claus" on it - Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy.

Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker´s house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa´s helpers. Grandma parked down the street from Bobby´s house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going."

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his door, and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma. Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby. Fifty years haven´t dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker´s bushes.

That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: "Ridiculous." Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

I still have the Bible, with the tag tucked inside: $19.95.

"Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born." - Dale Turner