Notebook
December 18th, 2009 by Gary Osberg
Good morning from Collegeville,
 
Seven days until Christmas.  I am doing this on my new ergonomic external keyboard.  The physical therapy is not going as well as we expected.  Someone suggested voice recognition software. 
 
Children love Christmas, as well they should.  As with most families, some years Christmas gifts were easy to come by and some years they were hard to come by.  The Christmas of 1956 was a memorable one for me.  My mother had to take an apartment in Little Falls, having left Dad after years of his not being very responsible.  That Christmas, Santa brought us six big Tonka Toy 18 wheel trucks.  There was a cattle truck, an oil tanker, a freight truck and three more.  This was a perfect gift for a family with five boys. For years I had the impression that they were from a social agency that served the poor.  It turned out that the gift giver was Dewey Johnson, a classmate of Mother, who was acquainted with one of the founders of Tonka Toys.   Dewey had already passed on before I learned this from my mother, so I did not get a chance to thank him. 

Perhaps you know of a family that has come upon hard times and they could use a Secret Santa.

Here at St. John’s we are blessed with a lot of signs of the season.  One is the huge tree in the Great Hall.  If you have ever wondered how they get the tree inside, simply go to www.youtube,com and type in “Great Hall Tree”  or perhaps this link will work  http://bit.ly/7H3YDf 

 The show this week is live from The Town Hall in New York City.  Special guests include Norah Jones, Madeleine Peyroux, Martin Sheen and The Russian Chamber Chorus along with the Royal Academy of Radio Actors.  Enjoy the show. 

 “It is better to give than to receive”  Anonymous

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