I miss them most on Christmas Eve. Every Christmas Eve they came to my parents house and we had quail for dinner. When he and Dad were younger, they would go quail hunting on Christmas Eve. The quail they killed that morning were the quail we would have for dinner that night. They were quail hunting on the day after Christmas in 1960 when I knocked a candle over and burned the house down.
As years passed and Sweet Pea, Matt and I grew from tots to teenagers, they were there every year. Gifts changed from drums and cap guns to duck calls and hunting coats. Many an evening was spent ‘practicing’ calling ducks with him in the hall at my parent’s home. Sometimes in the summertime, he and I would meet at the ponds at the Country Club at dusk. We practiced calling the tame ducks there, and sometimes, we’d fish there.
Every year or so, they would go somewhere magical. It might be Hawaii, or Germany, or Spain. They would travel on exciting vacations and live large. All the way from Corinth, Mississippi they traveled the world and saw the sights, heard the sounds, ate the food and drank the liquor.
On Christmas Eve, it was almost like there was assigned seating. Miss Dot always sat at the end of the couch. Smiling, and laughing she would tell stories of the hard times in Mississippi. They used to have to travel to Memphis to buy a fifth of whisky. They would go on Saturday, and that one fifth would last all week. Liberace didn’t have anything on her. Miss Dot dressed to dazzle.
Coachie would be mostly absorbed in what ever football game was being played. If you listened to him, you would learn some absolutely solid football wisdom. He understood more about what was going on down on the field than anyone I ever met, and he could explain it in such a way that a dumb kid could understand it. He was the same with hunting and fishing. He could explain stuff to you so that you knew it, and you knew you knew it, and you understood why it was the way it was. He taught Drivers Ed. He taught me to drive by having me drive his El Camino to Lake Wapanocca so we could go fishing. I was 30 years old before I realized that Sweet Pea, Matt and I were the only people on earth who knew him as ‘Coachie’. The rest of the world knew him as Jimmy Jackson.
Dad used to hold his ice filled glass up at eye level while pouring bourbon almost as if he were filling to a mark on a beaker. He’d laugh and tell stories about how cold it was, and how deep the snow was in Germany.
Mom and Ralph always cooked the quail. With a gathering as large as this, it was always a lot of quail. Ralph was the gentleman’s gentleman who always helped mom. Even when all he could do was sit at the end of the counter, he still came to help Mom cook the quail. At the end of the evening, it was always my job to take Ralph home to Florida, his wife.
We don’t live on Cardinal Road anymore. New folks own the house. Mom, Dad, Coachie and Miss Dot have moved on to their greater reward, but they are still with us every Christmas Eve. They are in our thoughts, and memories, our conversations and our prayers. They are in the photos we bring out. They are in our the laughter, and our smiles.
As Miss Dot used to say, ‘I’ll tell you one damn thing…..,” Merry Christmas!
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