What’s your favorite Christmas gift? Mine literally fell out of the sky
Today being Christmas, I’ll share with you some of my favorite gifts of all time.
The first is an electric blanket given to me by my friends Sandy and Dave Jacobs of Fort Walton Beach. It has warmed me for years to the point it is old and worn out.
I told my friend Ray Aldridge of Fort Walton Beach, who nagged me for years to buy a computer so I cold write a novel, that I first needed to cross off everything on my Need-To-Get List. One of those items was a Stanley hammer. Later, Ray presented me with a Stanley hammer, with a note that said: “I hope this brings you one step closer to the computer.” Next year, I bought the computer. The novel came out a month ago.
Otis Gossman presented me with a bottle of Absolut for Christmas 1983. I was a beer drinker, not a vodka drinker, but to make Otis feel better I tasted the stuff. Lo! It was splendid.
Over the years Mom and Dad have given me any number of great Christmas gifts, but the one I remember best landed on my chest-of-drawers on a July night. I was working the late shift on an assembly line to save money for college. When I got home that night, I flipped on my bedroom light, instantly knew that something was right, and saw it: a new stereo! A Sound Design with a turntable, an AM-FM tuner and an eight-track player. I wore out three needles on that turntable.
My cousin Dot, who died a few years back, had a knack for giving cool Christmas gifts. Once it was a Kodak pocket camera. Then it was U.S. currency proof sets. I still have the photos and the coins.
Jimmy Ready, my uncle, who lives here in Fort Walton Beach, gave me a portable shortwave radio one Christmas. Many were the nights I listened to Radio Moscow, if the ionosphere was right, or Radio Havana. Mostly I kept it tuned to Dutch Van on WNUE, the AM fixture at 1400 on your dial.
When I was in the seventh grade, Mom and Dad gave me a London Fog jacket for Christmas. London Fog was as necessary to my existence as Hang Ten cotton pullovers, which is to say I would not have attended classes at Pryor Junior High School that semester had I not been wearing a London Fog jacket over my Hang Ten shirt. Sadly, the jacket was stolen that spring.
Probably the best gift I ever received was given to me by the good lord on Christmas 1977. I had just graduated from college and I was jobless, with no immediate prospects. I was feeling low.
Mom, Dad and I drove to Columbus, Ohio, to spend Christmas with my sister and brother-in-law. All I remember wanting for Christmas was to feel good about something. I liked snow. Maybe a snowfall would cheer me up.
We were there a week. No snow. On Christmas Eve, a terrible storm swept through. It rained like the dickens, destroying our carefully arranged luminaria. We sat inside, watching the rain beat against the windows.
Christmas morning dawned gray and cold. We opened our gifts. The trip back to Florida loomed. And then it happened.
Big, fat flakes tumbled out of the sky, like parade confetti. This celebration gave way to a driving, no-nonsense snowfall that covered the ground.
Mom and Dad bought me a plane ticket and told me I cold stay another couple of weeks.
A miracle, for Christmas.
This column was originally published in the Northwest Florida Daily News on December 25, 1996, and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
This is an image from Pixabay. Creative Commons license.
If God had intended that I fix things, such as wiring, he would have given me frizzy, electricity-blasted hair.
But my hair is straight. It curls a little when I let it grow, which means I have the desire but lack the competence to fix anything that requires more than a clonging with a hammer.
Still, I try. Recently I’ve been on a kick to get some of the jobs done around the house I’ve been putting off for years. I knew it would be trouble if I tried to do this work myself. I knew I would need people with caulk in their veins.
But when the kitchen fluorescent lights went belly up, I was certain I could fix them – all by myself.
Isn’t that how all horror movies begin? With an innocent, well-intended assumption that goes terribly, terribly wrong?
That thought never entered my mind as I flipped the switch and the lights sputtered. It’s just the tubes, I told myself. They’ve burned out. I replaced them at $2.99 plus tax apiece, nearly falling off the cat-shredded chair and performing a nifty mid-air ballet maneuver as one evil tube spring from its socket and headed for the floor.
The lights still didn’t work.
All right, I thought. It must be the switch. I went to the hardware store and bought one of those fancy illuminated switches. No more fumbling in the dark. I congratulated myself. I am uptown.
I know what you’re thinking. But I didn’t forget to shut off the circuit breaker. I removed the old switch, pulling off a chunk of paint-attached Sheetrock with it. The wiring scheme looked simple enough. I rigged up the new switch and mounted it.
The lights STILL didn’t work. That’s when Dad told me about something called a “ballast,” which could burn out and would need replacing by somebody with copper wire in their veins. Fine, I thought. I’ll call the electrician on Monday.
Then I discovered NONE of the other lights in the kitchen would work either. At first, I couldn’t believe it. I kept flipping the switches, hoping I would awaken from what was fast becoming a nightmare. But they remained dark, and I tell you it was an accusing dark. I called Dad. I could sense his shaking his head in dismay. All he said was, “I’ll come over.”
He gazed in bafflement at the circuit breaker box. He tested the old switch. He scratched his head a lot, I thought. This is not good. Upstairs, the smoke alarm began to beep. I thought, Oh my God, this is REALLY not good. I asked, “Could it have anything to do with that switch I put in today?”
Dad looked at it. “What the heck is this?” he blurted, half puzzled, half amazed.
I’d connected what I thought was the ground wire to the ground post. Turns out it wasn’t the ground wire. It was the wire that supplied current to all the other lights.
“You mean that wire’s not supposed to go there?” I asked innocently. “No,” he answered, the implied You knucklehead hanging thickly in the air.
Minutes later, the lights worked, and the smoke alarm had stopped beeping (we’d accidentally shut off its power). But the big lights still wouldn’t work. The copper-veined one would fix that. Dad made me promise. …
Now I’m thinking the place could use a ceiling fan. There’s a place for one in the living room. I think I could put it in. I’ve got a hammer.
The horror. The horror.
This column was published in the Wednesday, December 18, 1996 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Today, Okaloosa County holds the last of its workshops to decide the fate of a 54-acre tract on Okaloosa Island.
The debate has been fractious, with many people and institutions expressing their opinions about how the land should be used. This newspaper has editorialized that it should be developed for a conference center. Others, mostly employees of competing developments, island residents who fear congestion, and recreational interests, have said it should become a park.
I have a third suggestion.
Restore the land to what it was.
Make it a greenway.
A greenway, if you didn’t know, is an island of nature preserved within the urban environment, a slice of trees and wildlife allowed to continue in an undisturbed state as bordering land areas are developed.
Greenways offer many benefits to a community, many of which cannot be measured with a price tag.
The most obvious is that they provide a habitat, or a shelter, for animals and plants that are threatened by development. As people build ever farther into areas previously left to Mother Nature, animals and plants are being squeezed for space. A greenway provides a small haven for at least some of these species.
But the benefits for you and I are greater. A greenway, for instance, offers a small patch of nature into which we may escape at our convenience – or need. As the Emerald Coast grows and the pressures of urban living mount, we will need places like greenways to reconnect our spirit with nature and our peace with ourselves. The “drive in the countryside” may become as close as your nearest greenway.
They also serve as ways to educate children about nature. Children must experience nature firsthand to have a real understanding and appreciation for what they’re being taught. That job cannot be left to television documentaries. Greenways offer safe and accessible environments for this kind of learning.
Greenways also work as natural thermostats, absorbing some f the heat generated by urban life. And in this area they provide a measure of watershed protection, preventing our bays and bayous from becoming unlovely and uninhabitable bodies of sediment and algae.
Apart from all this, an aesthetic issue exists. How can I describe for you the pleasure I felt as I jogged beside Glenwood Park in Cinco Bayou this spring, taking in the delightful scent of flowers, and enjoying the calls of birds or the wind sighing through branches? How many times have I strolled the boardwalk through the park, allowing the cool, dark silence to recompose my wits? Part of the craziness of the world today derives from the unceasing stimulation with which we surround ourselves. A cloud-flecked sky, framed with trees, is the only cure for that malady.
Here, we have a chance to not only stop the damage we’ve inflicted on our lovely coast, but actually reverse that process. I say we clean up that mess over there. Restore it to what it was. Plant scrub pine, beach grass, sea oats. Bring in beach mice. Correct what we have undone.
A greenway may cost us tax revenue, but who can calculate the value such a land tract will bring us in the future? Look at it as a small savings account for our sanity.
See you in the clouds.
The column was originally published in the Northwest Florida Daily News on December 11, 1996 and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .