Steve's Genealogy Blog

My earliest memory of attending a live performance at Christmastime was when I was in graduate school in Oregon . I attended a sing-along Messiah concert with a group of my fellow students. I wasn’t familiar with much of the Messiah, so I really didn’t sing along. My friends sang with gusto and were a bit disappointed that I could do little more than read along as everyone else participated.

A few years later, while living in Nebraska, I drove to Omaha to attend a performance of The Nutcracker. The ballet was performed by a community-based group and I was disappointed that the ballet was performed to recorded music. In retrospect, I suppose the version I saw was The Nutcracker – Lite.

Now, living in San Francisco, opportunities to see high-quality Christmas performances abound. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I haven’t seen many of them. Over the years, I’ve seen A.C.T.’s version of A Christmas Carol several times, a performance that is often a bit unconventional. Who knew Ebenezer Scrooge could be played with a Caribbean accent?

By far, one of the most popular of holiday performances in San Francisco is the holiday edition of Beach Blanket Babylon, the story of Snow White traveling around the globe trying to find her prince. The holiday edition includes some special characters, including a forest of dancing Christmas trees. I’ve seen Beach Blanket Babylon many times, though only once at Christmas. It’s always a popular stop for visitors from out of town.

This year, I’ll be attending another performance of the Messiah . Some friends are taking me to the concert later this week. All I know about the performance at this point is that it’s not a sing-along Messiah. That’s probably just as well. I still don’t know the music.

Written for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories – Day 13 . 

Copyright © 2007 by Stephen J. Danko

Each year, during the holiday season, the elementary school I attended held a canned food drive. I remember only that the canned food would be distributed to the needy, but I don’t recall ever being told who the needy were, where they lived, or who would distribute the food.

As far as I was concerned, the canned food drive was a great opportunity for me to eliminate those canned foods I most disliked from our pantry at home. This included just about any canned green vegetable.

My mother was no fool. She allowed me to get away with disposing of the canned spinach, green beans, peas, and lima beans. My teachers were no fools either. They closely watched what the students were placing in the collection bins and noted an overabundance of green vegetables and a dearth of canned fruit, tuna, macaroni, and juice.

My taste in vegetables really hasn’t changed much with time. I much prefer fresh vegetables in season to canned vegetables of any ilk. But given the challenge to contribute to a canned food drive, I prefer to donate canned foods that I would actually eat. Why should the needy be required to eat food that I won’t?

Every now and then, I encounter people in San Francisco, rummaging through the garbage bins, looking for something to eat, and I’m reminded that there are those among us who would be happy to have the food many people consider worthy only for discard.

These days, I also try to provide for the needy by making cash donations to worthy charities and allowing the directors of those charities decide how the money can best be spent to meet their needs.

In particular, I am a strong supporter of a drop-in center for homeless women in Oakland, California called A Friendly Place and its companion overnight facility for homeless women called A Friendly Manor. Both are operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, and both are shining examples of efforts to extend a helping hand to those in need.

I first became acquainted with the project when I started reading the murder mysteries written by Sister Carol Anne O’Marie, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. I have hard cover copies of all Sister Carol Anne’s books in my living room and, one day, a friend of mine noticed the books. He told me that he worked with one of the other nuns in Sister Carol Anne’s convent and would mention that I had these books.

Word quickly reached Sister Carol Anne, who sent back a message that she wanted to meet me, and would I be interested in coming to the convent for dinner? I was thrilled.

Sister Carol Anne O’Marie and Steve Danko

During our dinner, Sister Carol Anne and her colleagues told me about their projects A Friendly Place and A Friendly Manor commenting, “We were really quite naive. If we had known the difficulties of running A Friendly Place and A Friendly Manor, we might not have begun the project.”

A Friendly Place/Manor derives 33% of its operating income from individual donations and, in addition to cash donations, the organization asks for wash cloths, combs and brushes, safety pins, sugar, toilet tissue, bandages, spray deodorant, air freshener, and bingo prizes. They really don’t ask for much, and that which is donated is gratefully received.

A Friendly Place/Manor
2298 San Pablo Ave
Oakland, CA 94612-1321

A donation to A Friendly Place/Manor has become my new holiday tradition.

Written for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories – Day 12 . 

Copyright © 2007 by Stephen J. Danko

One thing my family did not do was travel.

During the summers, a long trip was the 150 miles or so from Albany, New York to Worcester, Massachusetts via Route 20 (before the Massachusetts Turnpike was completed). During the winter, we barely traveled at all and, even then, our travel was restricted to the Albany area.

One trip during the holiday season I do remember, though, was not exactly a family trip. My Boy Scout troop went on a winter camping trip, a Freeze-Out, to the Helderberg Mountains to the southwest of Albany.

My father accompanied my troop on this particular camping trip and, to this day, he revels in relating the experience to anyone within earshot. He’s told even me the story dozens of times, even though he knows I was there. His story goes something like this:

The morning we arrived in the Helderbergs, the skies were crisp and clear. There was not a cloud in the sky. There was no wind. The temperature was below freezing, but none of us really noticed the cold all that much.

The side of the hill on which we set up camp was treeless, and would have been covered in grass during the summer, but was now blanketed with a thick pallet of snow, mostly unspoiled by footprints of man or beast.

We unpacked the cars, set up the tents, and started a campfire.

The boys grabbed their sleds, saucers, and inner tubes to enjoy this perfect winter day sliding down the hill . They packed down the snow to make fast sledding tracks down the hillside . They built ramps to propel their sleds and saucers into the air as they slid down the hill.

After sledding all day, we all gathered by the campfire for a simple, hot meal – beef stew. Nothing tasted so good.

And, then, the sun set. And the wind rose. And the temperature plummeted.

I have never been so cold in my life.

We dove into our tents and crawled into our sleeping bags without worrying about cleaning up the dishes.

Exhausted from the day’s activities, we all slept soundly and woke the next morning to another clear, crisp day. We approached the remains of the previous night’s supper to find that, had we any intent to clean the dishes before we broke camp, those hopes were long past. Everything was frozen solid including the ladle, frozen in the remains of the beef stew. The stew, in turn, was frozen in its pot.

No matter. We packed everything up into the cars and headed home . The dishes would wait.

Written for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories – Day 11 . 

Copyright © 2007 by Stephen J. Danko

Although I received many Christmas presents over the years I lived at home with my parents, I remember very few. Of course, many of the Christmas presents I received were clothes and I’m not surprised I don’t remember those. Some of the gifts I received that still stand out in my mind were:

– Matty Mattell talking doll. That same year, my older sister received the Sister Belle talking doll, and my younger sister received the Casper the Friendly Ghost talking doll.

– Go for Broke board game. My older sister received the Clue? board game the same year.

– Plush monkey, not one of my favorite toys, and a bit worse for the wear, but I still have this one.

– Mr. Ed talking hand puppet, who said phrases such as “The phone is ringing, shall I answer?”, “My shoes are good luck”, “Just call me Mr. Ed”, “My girl friend has a pony tail”, “Isn’t it silly talking to a horse?”, “I’m a horse, of course… ‘whinny'”, “I’ll be the horse, you be the buggy”, “Who has a horse face?…’snort'”, “Come on let’s talk”, and “Oh…horse feathers” .  Click on the link to hear the phrases. I still have this puppet. The same year, my older sister received a Woody Woodpecker talking hand puppet and my younger sister received a Bozo the Clown talking doll.

– Erector Powermatic Motor Set and, yes, I did build the robot shown on the cover. The battery operated electric motor that came with the set allowed the robot to move under its own power.

– A highway interchange and bridge construction set. I loved this toy and spent hours and hours building highway interchanges and bridges, taking them apart, and building new ones.

As children, my sisters and I didn’t often give Christmas presents to others. We usually didn’t have any money to buy gifts. One Christmas, however, my younger sister and I decided to buy my mother new towels. Between the two of us, we still didn’t have enough money to buy the towels, but a kind sales clerk adjusted the price down to the amount we did have. As we turned in our cash to pay for the towels, the clerk remarked that the coins were warm. I suppose they must have been . My sister and I had clutched the coins in our tight little fists all day until we paid for the towels.

Written for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories – Day 10 . 

Copyright © 2007 by Stephen J. Danko

At Christmastime in the 1950s and 1960s, my family frequently visited my father’s brothers and sisters and they visited us . I never really thought of these family gatherings as holiday parties although, in retrospect, they probably were.

At these gatherings, one of the favorite pastimes of the adults was cribbage. Being the only children at these events, my sisters and I were expected to amuse ourselves as the adults played cards.

Back when he was in trade school, my father made a cribbage board, and it was this cribbage board that was used for the games held at our house. The pegs were intricately carved and the board itself practically glowed with the rich stain and glossy varnish with which my father finished the board. My father kept his cards and cribbage board in a locked drawer at the base of a small table next to his chair in the living room. Except for a small safe that contained important family documents, this drawer was the only place in the house that was ever locked.

While the adults played cribbage, my sisters and I would invariably get bored and hover around the card table, watching the adults. These efforts were often short-lived, since we would ask questions like, “Is it good that you have so many Aces?” and be promptly banished from the room.

But, as we grew older, my sisters and I would find ways to involve ourselves in the family gatherings by putting on impromptu shows: singing songs, lip-synching to 45s, and reciting poems. Our efforts were somewhat less than professional, but occasionally we would bring the house down.

On one particular Christmas, my older sister and I taught our younger sister a song, a variant on “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”:

Randolph the redneck cowboy
Had a very shiny gun,
And if you ever saw it
You would turn around and run.

All of the other cowboys
Used to laugh and call him names.
They wouldn’t let poor Randolph
Join in any poker games.

Then one foggy Saturday Night
The Sheriff came to say,
“Randolph, with your gun so bright,
Won’t you lead my posse tonight?”

Then all the cowboys loved him
And they shouted out with glee
“Randolph the redneck cowboy,
You’ll go down in history!”

The only problem was that my sister stumbled on one of the lines. Instead of singing “Randolph, with your gun so bright, Won’t you lead my posse tonight?”, she sang “Randolph, with your gun so bright, Won’t you shoot my wife tonight?”.

Wherever did she get that line?

Written for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories – Day 9 . 

Copyright © 2007 by Stephen J. Danko