Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house

Recently I ventured into what we officially call the “Fourth Bedroom,” in our house.

Years ago it served as a bedroom for one or more of our kids. It’s been a home-office, perhaps twice over.

Later it was the place where boxes of items from my parent’s house had their temporary resting place, not long after Mom and Dad found their permanent ones.

Now the closet is the place where dusty shoeboxes, tattered manila envelops and old-fashioned photo albums contain special family memories and history, specifically those from Christmas.

Some of my earliest Christmas memories, and a few later ones, were rekindled as I sorted through photos.

There I was, in blazing black and white, a crew-cut youngster of about 4, looking in one of the stockings, “hung by the chimney with care,” in the living room of my grandparents in Okanogan, Wash.

In those early years we lived in Okanogan where my mother briefly taught school near her hometown before embarking on a new life in Spokane.

In another pic, there I was, hunched over my first Lionel electric train set, one made out of real steel that ran on a 3-railed track.

While Christmas was a big day, just as important, “’Twas the night before Christmas,” where, as the poem says, “Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” That’s because this was the time when we’d trudge off to Midnight Mass at the old Okanogan Catholic church.

My grandmother, Nell — she never went by her baptismal name of Mary Ellen — was about the most devout person I ever knew when it came to practicing her faith. Never did we miss that mass, or did a morsel of meat touch our lips on Fridays.

Her husband, Bill, or ‘Gramps,’ never in my memory regularly went to church. But he had a job on Christmas Eve, preparing the house for card games that commenced after mass and lasted into the wee hours of Christmas morning.

The adults had to have a deal promising to never reveal the true identity of Santa Claus, who had to arrive in the midst of the games. I never sprang from the bed to see what was the matter, despite hearing loud voices occasionally yell, “Pinochle!”

Okanogan Christmases remained part of our family for years, even after the move to Spokane, and the advent of a blended family.

Every year my mom, brother Bill, and stepdad, Herbie, would make the 150-mile journey on U.S. Highway 2 to Wilbur, over State Route 155 to Grand Coulee, Nespelem and dreaded Disautel Pass, never needing four-wheel-drive.

As we kids grew up and the grandparents got older, or passed away as Gramps did in 1975, the trekking “over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house,” began to come to an end.

The last trip to Okanogan came in 1976. It’s only memorable because of not what happened there but back home in Spokane.

For some reason my parents had to add fish in an aquarium to go along with their three dogs that needed regular attention. They enlisted my new girlfriend, soon to be my fiancé and now my wife, to drop by their home in the West Central neighborhood to feed the fish.

As it turned out, while checking on the fish, she likely also unwittingly interrupted a burglary that was taking place in the back portion of the house. Seems some of the problematic next-door neighbor kids, who used this as a way to springboard their careers in a life of crime, knew an opportunity when they saw no one home.

They broke into the back bedroom where a high-end stereo component system sat and proceeded to grab all but a reel-to-reel tape machine. Apparently when our designated fish feeder stopped by, it spooked the burglars who left with the window wide open.

When we returned home, a cold breeze came from that open window and all it took was a quick glance to discover the crime.

We all knew the likely culprits, who, in typical “dumb criminal” fashion, decided to show off their heist on the porch as they blared music across the neighborhood on one of those late winter ‘spring fever’ days.

While the police said they could not do anything, my mother did. She walked next door, confronted the neighbors — and their mother — and the stereo was back where it belonged in no time flat.

The belief in Santa Claus that was formed in those early days in Okanogan was reconfirmed.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].