A Christmas, And a Time, Long Gone

Those December days of 1960 sped by so quickly that it was not until the 23rd day of the month that I left my Brooklyn apartment to purchase the year’s Christmas tree. Darkness had already fallen as I crossed to Flatbush Avenue, looking for what had earlier been a grand supply of trees for sale.

     Several of the sellers had already closed up shop, but down at  Seventh Avenue I found one man with two or three bedraggled specimens still on hand.   

    He too was closing down, but he reckoned I could have a 4-foot, skimpy tree for $1.50,  about the amount I had in my pocket.

   My wife and daughter would at least have to admit that it was green and would let us reflect on Christmases past and future. The presents Santa Claus would leave could fit under the tree, a matter of special interest to one-and-a-half-year-old Susan.

   My path home took me along Seventh Avenue past an earlier visitor from the skies, the fuselage of a United Airlines jet liner that had crashed on our block. Coming from Chicago, it had hit another airplane over New York harbor and the pilot had desperately sought to land on the meadow in nearby Prospect Park.  He did not make it. Only a tiny baby survived for a time, but he did not make it to Christmas.  

   With the snow gently falling, the airplane became an unwelcome and unhappy visitor to the neighborhood.

   That plane had a special significance for me. I had been returning from Phoenix, AZ, on the day of the crash. Airplane seats were scarce and I had no reservation, standing by for whatever opened up.  I caught a United flight to Chicago and then a later one to New York, arriving some hours after the earlier plane went down.  Until I arrived and called home from the airport, though, I did not know about the fate of the earlier flight.  A taxi brought me to the neighborhood, but I had to walk the last few cordoned-off blocks. As I carried the tree by the ravaged corner, mine was a special prayer.    

   I turned left on Lincoln Place, a quiet residential street with brownstones on one side and a few apartment buildings, including ours, on the North side.  Susan was waiting by the door, ready to discover the fun of Christmas, something more than the usual evening ritual.

   December 1960 was a special time as John F. Kennedy had just been elected president and was beginning the transition from the Eisenhower years.  A generational change was in place, one that would move from the aura of World War II to the freedoms and searchings of the 1960s. We all looked forward to the new days, the days that were to become known as Camelot. But at Christmas, this was all just evolving and, with St. Nicholas getting ready to ride, thoughts moved to the winter celebration.   

   The little tree served us well that Christmas, as Susan awakened early and rushed out to find her presents.

   Then Christmas was over, the 26th was just another workday. The little tree was left by the curb along with several others.

   Today, Flatbush Avenue remains, bisecting the neighborhoods of Brooklyn. The United airplane is long gone, as is Camelot. But aged men still sell trees at that corner. And in this Christmas season 50 years later, I am sure that somewhere along Flatbush Avenue a family is celebrating Christmas in front of a small, scraggly but beloved tree.