(Told to me by my father, Clif McDonald, Nov. 2018)
My family moved to the Sacramento Mountains in Southern New Mexico during the Great Depression. We left our grandparents, aunts, uncles and numerous cousins in Junction, Texas - a town where the North Llano and the South Llano rivers join up to become the just plain old Llano River. Daddy rented a farm in Avis, New Mexico, which was far away from our home on the river's south fork. We loaded up our truck and we four boys, Mama and Daddy lined up to say our goodbyes. It was like a funeral when we left; everybody was crying and hugging and telling us to be safe in "Mexico." We set out on the Texas Pecos Trail, a couple of ruts set in dust, that would shake and rattle our teeth for the next 450 miles of our westward journey.
We stopped each night before dark to set up camp; unrolled our bedrolls, found kindling, made a fire, and cooked out in the west Texas desert. We'd have our supper and the next morning we'd eat the cold leftovers. Mama and Daddy would drink some cowboy coffee boiled in the coffee pot and we'd set off down the rutty road until our car broke down or until dusk, then start all over again the next day. We made the trip in a little over three weeks but it felt like a year of waiting and stopping and fixing. When we finally got to our place at Avis, it was beautiful! We had a house and a school nearby and we could farm and raise animals. It was pretty close to Heaven.
In 1932, there was a persistent drought in the Sacramento mountains; our potatos only grew to the size of shooter marbles which Mama would boil, then clap into patties and fry up into "bread" because we couldn't afford flour for real hot cakes or rolls. Beans and corn were also our staples, and chickens provided eggs and sometimes a Sunday dinner. Our farm was best at raising children; the number of kids in our family eventually doubled, despite losing two sweet boys who left to become angels in Heaven.
In 1932 there wasn't any money for Christmas. Daddy decided to cut a wagon load of nice wood specially sized for cook stoves. His plan was to peddle the handy, time saving fuel to housewives in the treeless, flatland towns nearby. My dad worked for days sawing, chopping and splitting hardwood down to the perfect size to fit in the firebox of 500 pound cast iron, heat producing, water boiling, bacon frying, chicken and biscuit cooking contraptions. We helped load the wagon with the perfectly sized kindling and split logs. Daddy told us all goodbye then hauled his freight down the trail through the settlements of Pinon, Duncan, Hope, and on to the barren plains of Artesia - stopping at every house to try to sell his cookstove wood.
After several days we began to expect him to return and we would look down the road to try to see his horses and wagon coming. At night we would sit outside to listen for him. We were about to give up one evening when we heard the rumble of wagon wheels and the clinking of trace chains. We all ran down the road to meet him. He stopped and we all climbed on the wagon asking, "Did you sell the wood, Daddy?"
"Nobody has any money," he said. "But
I traded the wood for a load of apples." We looked under the tarp and saw the most beautiful red apples we could imagine and we all got one and started eating. They were sweet and crispy and juicy and we were so excited and so proud of our dad for making such a good trade.
On Christmas Eve we hung our stockings by the fireplace and finally went to sleep. We woke in the morning to the sound of a crackling fire in the fireplace. We excitedly ran in and found some candy and peanuts in our stockings. I also got a pair of shiny new shoes. I put them on, laced them up and waited for daylight to see how fast I could run in those new shoes. I thought to myself, "It just doesn't get any better than this!"
Every Christmas now I think of how hard Daddy worked to make a Christmas for us, how good a new pair of shoes feels and how much faster they can make a young boy run. And, when I eat an apple during the holidays, I recall how the perfume of a thousand cold, sweet apples smells when a tarp is lifted from where once a load of chopped wood lay.
Every Christmas now I think of how hard Daddy worked to make a Christmas for us, how good a new pair of shoes feels and how much faster they can make a young boy run. And, when I eat an apple during the holidays, I recall how the perfume of a thousand cold, sweet apples smells when a tarp is lifted from where once a load of chopped wood lay.
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