Joyce and I have hosted perhaps 35-40 Christmases with all the food and drink and cooking. It was always Joyce's crowning achievement.
One summer in Escondido, California, Joyce bought some strings of those big old outdoor lights at garage sale. We had a beautiful naval orange tree in our back yard and some of our Missouri relatives were coming for Christmas, so I used those big lights by threaded them through the orange tree and used the oranges as ornaments. It turned out beautifully and our guests delighted at picking fresh oranges off the tree and seeing the lights on the tree after dark. I am not a fan of citrus fruits, but those on our tree were sweet and delicious!
Christmas parties we have had in the past were legendary! We had parties in Millington, Tennessee that packed the home with friends and co-workers. Our parties in Escondido had friends, co-workers and family all mixed in and all getting along well. Joyce used to make her own Kahlua at home. One party the Kahlua was flowing and everyone enjoyed it so much Joyce's normally huge stock ran out completely. The house was packed with people when Joyce came up to me and whispered we were out of Kahlua, so I slipped away and raced over to the local grocery to buy more bottles of the real thing. We started serving it and people were asking me what happened because the Kahlua we were then serving was not as good as what we had served before.
Christmas time during the Litton years, the last days before the holiday shutdown all the ladies would bring cookies and food and crock pots full of their specialties. The aroma filled the halls and was powerful enough to overcome the normal foul odors of plating tanks, oxide deposition lines, clean lines and everything else.
One holiday season we went to Saint Louis to my cousins home for New Year's day celebration of food and drinks. I was stationed in Millington, Tennessee (8 hours away at that time) and had to be back to teach the next day. We started to leave in the afternoon and found our car encrusted in ice. Once I got it scraped away we headed south. The roads were icy and snowy. We got as far as Perryville, Missouri, it was dark and a tractor-trailer had jack-knifed, blocking the small 2 lane highway. We sat there for an hour and I was running low on gas, so I pulled out of the long lineup and headed to a gas station a quarter mile back to fill up. I asked the attendant if there was an alternate route. He had a map on the wall and showed me the route, but it was a country highway and would be snow covered. He said that if I lowered the tire pressures on my car I had a good chance of making it through. I lowered my tire pressure to 20 psi and headed out along the route he showed me. No one had been there since the snow started falling early that day. After a short distance, we were plowing snow that was up to the front bumper on the car. I could see it fanning out from the driver's side of the car. We finally got to the Arkansas border and it was like driving through a curtain. There was no snow at all. I stopped to refill the tire pressures and got home late that night, but I was able to get to work the next morning teaching transmitter theory and not missing morning muster.
Copyright Bill Weber 2006-2019 and beyond.
One summer in Escondido, California, Joyce bought some strings of those big old outdoor lights at garage sale. We had a beautiful naval orange tree in our back yard and some of our Missouri relatives were coming for Christmas, so I used those big lights by threaded them through the orange tree and used the oranges as ornaments. It turned out beautifully and our guests delighted at picking fresh oranges off the tree and seeing the lights on the tree after dark. I am not a fan of citrus fruits, but those on our tree were sweet and delicious!
Christmas parties we have had in the past were legendary! We had parties in Millington, Tennessee that packed the home with friends and co-workers. Our parties in Escondido had friends, co-workers and family all mixed in and all getting along well. Joyce used to make her own Kahlua at home. One party the Kahlua was flowing and everyone enjoyed it so much Joyce's normally huge stock ran out completely. The house was packed with people when Joyce came up to me and whispered we were out of Kahlua, so I slipped away and raced over to the local grocery to buy more bottles of the real thing. We started serving it and people were asking me what happened because the Kahlua we were then serving was not as good as what we had served before.
Christmas time during the Litton years, the last days before the holiday shutdown all the ladies would bring cookies and food and crock pots full of their specialties. The aroma filled the halls and was powerful enough to overcome the normal foul odors of plating tanks, oxide deposition lines, clean lines and everything else.
One holiday season we went to Saint Louis to my cousins home for New Year's day celebration of food and drinks. I was stationed in Millington, Tennessee (8 hours away at that time) and had to be back to teach the next day. We started to leave in the afternoon and found our car encrusted in ice. Once I got it scraped away we headed south. The roads were icy and snowy. We got as far as Perryville, Missouri, it was dark and a tractor-trailer had jack-knifed, blocking the small 2 lane highway. We sat there for an hour and I was running low on gas, so I pulled out of the long lineup and headed to a gas station a quarter mile back to fill up. I asked the attendant if there was an alternate route. He had a map on the wall and showed me the route, but it was a country highway and would be snow covered. He said that if I lowered the tire pressures on my car I had a good chance of making it through. I lowered my tire pressure to 20 psi and headed out along the route he showed me. No one had been there since the snow started falling early that day. After a short distance, we were plowing snow that was up to the front bumper on the car. I could see it fanning out from the driver's side of the car. We finally got to the Arkansas border and it was like driving through a curtain. There was no snow at all. I stopped to refill the tire pressures and got home late that night, but I was able to get to work the next morning teaching transmitter theory and not missing morning muster.
Copyright Bill Weber 2006-2019 and beyond.
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