Letters from Appalachia: Septic trucks, a belly dancer, and finding Christmas in a bowl of boiled custard

Hello from Appalachia - where the pressing question in every conversation seems to be, “Y’all ready for Christmas?”

For most of us, the most honest answer is, “Lord no!” with so much to wrap up, literally and figuratively.  So much shopping to do. So many lists to cross off. So many “things” to attend.  

So many cookies to burn.

But Christmas doesn’t care. Oh, no it certainly does not, my friend.  Santa Claus is ‘comin to town whether you like it or not. Christmas has a way of staring you in the face and flat out daring you to blink. As if out of nowhere, it appears just after Thanksgiving and roars straight toward you like a train from a tunnel without tapping its brakes and without a whiff of concern over whether or not you are “ready.”

That, youngins, is how the Christmas cookie crumbles.

I’ll shoot straight. In recent years Christmas has plowed me down a bit - a casualty in the crosswalk flattened by septic tank truck I never saw coming.  Which reminds me!

Last Saturday night, my family and I waded into a red and green sea of humanity to watch our hometown Christmas parade.  By the looks of things, most of the crowd got there hours before the 6 p.m. official start time strategically staking out the very best view of the Christmas spectacular as it marched down Main Street.  We got there about two minutes before it started, so the best we could find was a spot 3-deep. There, along with the other late-comers, we were reminded that standing on tippy toes for an hour and a half is a great calf exercise.  

Just as the sun dropped below the horizon revealing the alluring glow of the Walmart parking lot lights on the west end of town, the fire department sounded the city’s almost never-used alert siren heralding the kick-off of our town’s biggest public event of the Holiday season. Dance troupes pranced, their heads held oh-so-high.  Fire engines trimmed in colorful lights crept forward while firefighters waved and handed out candy, happy to show off their freshly washed and polished trucks.  Hot on their heels were what seemed like a hundred floats representing every church congregation in the county.  The smiling faithful walked alongside, encouraging everyone to remember the real reason for the season and passing out plastic bags with candy bars and a pamphlet inviting you to repent and be saved.   

And then came…wait for it...the septic trucks!  Massive tanks on wheels with enormous hoses and the company’s name painted on the side.  I’m not lying - 5 or 6 of them.  Maybe more!  At first, the marketing strategy eluded me.  Rolling vessels for human excrement - at Christmas?  And then it dawned on me -  Christmas is here, company’s comin’, so now’s the time to empty the tank!  It’s go-time in the septic sector, don’t you know.  An especially good-humored friend later noted that it was nothing short of a missed opportunity that the septic tank truck people didn’t hand out Tootsie Rolls, preferably the full-size.  

My favorite entries were the marching bands.  That’s predictable, I suppose, for an old trombone player who can still remember every note of the high school band’s Christmas march first memorized in 1985.  And I can still recall the quiet terror that my trombone slide might hit the band member in front of me as we marched down that very same dimly lit downtown street. 

But in our hometown parade, there’s really only one undisputed crowd favorite, and it’s not the bands or Santa Claus or even Baby Jesus.  Nothing or no one elicits screams of excitement like the Jericho Shriners Belly Dancer.  Yes, we have a belly dancer in our Christmas Parade.  A male dancer, and legend at that!  Like a sultan parading before his subjects, he struts down the street wearing not much more than blousy, colorful pants -  no shirt, revealing freshly tanned and oiled pecs and abs.  With head lifted high to face throngs of screaming fans, he reveals perfectly groomed facial hair and a shockingly white smile.  And with swaying hips and a swinging golden sword, he leads the rest of the Shriners band, all middle to past middle-aged men playing drums and tooting some version of a Middle Eastern clarinet.   

Move over Charles Dickens!  Step aside Tiny Tim!  There’s your heaping dose of Christmas spirit. 

Now before you start frettin’ over one more sign of the degradation of moral values like Tick-Tok, plastic straws, and seedless watermelons, please know that the Shriners raise piles of cash to help sick kids, and the belly dancer has been a beloved parade fixture for decades. There’s widespread speculation that the current dancer is the son of the previous one and maybe the grandson of the one before that.  I guess the position is hereditary as long as you look good without your shirt on - never a stipulation placed on the eldest male in my family, thanks be to God.

In his presence, prim and proper ladies have been known to devolve into screaming little girls.  One of them - my own Grandmother, I shudder to admit.  My Dad’s mom.  Nanny is what we called her.  Truthfully, she wasn’t all that prim and proper.  Years of manual labor in a dress factory trained Nanny to love nothing more than an irreverent joke and a well-placed cuss word for added humor. But out in “the public” as she called it, Nanny always maintained her dignity.  And that’s why, every year at the Christmas Parade, it was both horrifying and hilarious to watch her melt into a screaming fan-girl the moment the belly dancer came near.  I vividly recall being a kid and hearing some woman hooping and hollering near me only to realize that it wasn’t some woman.  It was my Nanny, ordering the belly dancer to “Shake that thang!”  I can still see her -  head lifted just as high as his as they shared a passing wink and a mutual moment of Northeast Tennessee Christmas joy.

No child should have to witness his own grandmother cat-calling a total stranger - especially one with oiled abs.  But it’s a treasured Christmas memory, nonetheless.

Now there was a woman who knew how to stare right back at Christmas and never blink an eye!   Proof of that came long before I showed up, but the story lingers as a family legend to this day.  

The year - 1950 (or thereabouts, I’m told).  My Dad was a little boy - 5 or 6 at the time.  That year, he asked Santa for a bicycle, and Nanny was determined to do her part to make her little boy’s wish come true.   

So, she hatched a plan to help Santa out by hiding the Christmas bike at her Uncle Jim’s house about a mile away.  Then on Christmas Eve after my Dad went to bed, my Grandfather would drive to Uncle Jim’s, load the bike in the trunk, and have it under the tree on Christmas morning.

According to family legend, all was going to plan until the traditional family Christmas Eve Party at my Grandparents’ house apparently got a little too festive. Instead of preparing for his late-night mission to help Santa, my Grandfather and all the rest of the men in the family retreated to the basement to raise a glass of something strong, leaving the ladies to chat and sip punch in the dining room.  As the evening marched on, the basement bunch became so “merry” that my Nanny decided to take away the car keys and take matters into her own hands. Daunted by the thought of heaving a heavy kid’s bike into a car truck but determined that Santa would come through come hell or high water, she hitched a ride to her Uncle Jim’s house and, under the cloak of darkness and while still wearing her party dress, somehow managed to ride that kiddie bike all the way home, waving to neighbors along the way.

And that’s how you stare Christmas right in the face.

Nanny has been gone for almost 25 years, but I still can taste her signature Christmas dish - Boiled Custard!  A true delicacy. Milk, eggs, and sugar thicken into a velvety sweet sauce over a low simmer in a double boiler. 

Boiled Custard, in my Nanny’s own hand. I’m curious about the “5 or 6 servings” part. I’m certain she made a gallon every Christmas.

She’d stand and stir for what seemed like hours, staring into the pan as if to dare the slightest lump to appear. And she was always humming as she cooked, probably her favorite Christmas Carol, “O Beautiful Star of Bethlehem.”  

Remember it?

“Oh beautiful Star of Bethlehem,

Shining afar through shadows dim,

Giving the Light to those who long have gone.

Guiding the Wise Men on their way,

Unto the place where Jesus lay,

Oh beautiful Star of Bethlehem, shine on.”

I read somewhere that this old-time Christmas Carol was written by a fellow Tennessean, but it wasn’t a rhinestone-covered country star on the Grand Ole Opry.  Instead, the composer was R. Fisher Boyce, a never-famous dairy farmer from Rutherford County.  A dairy farmer!  Apparently, Farmer Boyce had big dreams and musical talent to match. But he also had a wife and pack of kids, so running off to The Opry wasn’t an option.  Instead, he faced life the best he knew how, working the farm and caring for his family and trying to make music when he could.  In 1938, he wrote “O Beautiful Star of Bethlehem” while milking cows in a barn, probably squatted on a stool, humming out the tune as it appeared in his head.

Despite later getting it published and recorded many times over, apparently Boyce never got a dime for his creativity and work. That seems like an injustice, but it’s also kind of fitting for Christmas.  After all, it was the broke-as-a-joke shepherds - the struggling farmers of their day - who were the first to hear the news.  And hadn’t the Baby been born in a barn?  Wasn’t his cradle just a hay-filled trough?  Old Farmer Boyce didn’t have a pile of money, and he sure didn’t have any gold or myrrh lying around.  So, he gave the gift of what he had - a song.  

That, too, is how you stare Christmas in the face.  

My plans for Christmas?  

You know what…  I think I’ll just stare it in the face, too, as the merriest of days marches on without a sliver of concern over my personal preparedness. I think I'll just let Christmas…. I don’t know… kind of wash over me this year. No more ugly septic tank plow-downs.  

Heck - I may just dig out the double boiler and give Nanny’s boiled custard a shot.  I think I’ll  face Christmas with a wooden spoon in my hand, swaying my hips like that belly dancer as I stand by the stove stirring custard until my arm falls off.  And you know what else?  I may just hum to myself the whole time…. about the Star of Bethlehem.   Just like Old Farmer Boyce, and just like my Nanny.   

And in her honor, I may just cuss if the custard gets lumpy.

Merry Christmas!

Josh