Christmas tree, O Christmas tree: Part 13

 A magical time

Behold the most modest, unassuming ornament on our tree. My son made in one of his playschools, no doubt with the help of one of his teachers. Arts and crafts never were his strong suit.

I’m fond of it because he made it, of course. But more than that, it looks homemade, like something fashioned out of salt and flour, then baked and painted. And because it does, it reminds me of a magical Christmas season more than 45 years ago when I was a cub reporter in Denton.

I returned to Denton in the summer of 1974 after a miserable seven-month sojourn at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, my first job out of North Texas State, now UNT. Frank Kelley, managing editor of the Denton Record-Chronicle, had taken pity on me after I had written a letter beseeching him to get me out of Lubbock. I must have sounded pretty desperate because he hired me over the phone to cover Denton City Hall.

The reporter who me showed around on my first day was a fellow with the grandiose name of Roy Appleton III. I had seen his byline in some back issues of the Record-Chronicle I had come across in Lubbock, and I had taken an instant, long-distance disliking of him.

My irrational response was based on the knowledge that the general manager and vice president of the Record-Chronicle was one Roy Appleton Jr. In my knee-jerk evaluation, that meant Roy III obviously was the boss's dissolute son pretending to be a journalist until he was elevated to upper management. To the manor born and all that. I hated him.

Until I met him. Roy was a bushy-haired frat boy from UT-Austin. He also was smart, funny, irreverent and talented. His stories were well-written and thoroughly researched, full of detail and nuance. He was by far the best reporter on the paper and bristled at any suggestion he was riding on his father’s coattails and coasting on the Appleton name.

We became, of course, great friends. We’ve remained so for more than four decades.

In those years, Roy was married to Angela, a striking, fiery-haired woman he had met in the R-C newsroom. They were living in an old farmhouse east of town on family property just off Mingo-Fishtrap Road. The land once had been the Denton County’s debtor jail, where the destitute worked the fields. It was known by all as the Poor Farm.

In 1974, the farmhouse was sagging and weather-beaten. But it was water-tight and snug in the winter, and Roy and Angela loved it.

As did I. I was a frequent guest at the Poor Farm. We’d sit on the comfy porch, drink beer, smoke an occasional joint and watch the trains pass on the tracks located a long stone’s throw from the house. When the weather was warm, we’d sit in the front yard and watch the stars shine clear and bright above us.

As Christmas approached that year, it was decided that we would travel to the Fannin County farm of Angela’s parents, located southeast of Sherman, where we would cut down a Christmas tree for the Poor Farm.

Fortified by booze and other stimulants, we searched the property until we found a well-shaped cedar that fit in perfectly with the Poor Farm ambiance.

With some difficulty, we felled the tree and slogged it back to the car, fighting a bitter wind and a dusting of snow. It was, as I recall, quite an adventure.

Once back at the Poor Farm, we decorated the tree with homemade ornaments made earlier by Angela and a friend. The final touch was stringing the branches with garlands of popcorn and cranberries. We laughed a lot, we drank a lot, we ate a lot. We even danced. Like I say, it was a magical time.

The humble ornament pictured here looks a bit like those homemade ornaments we dangled from that tree so many years ago. Close enough to bring back fond memories of the Poor Farm. It’s probably long gone by now, replaced by housing developments and strip retail centers.

When Roy and I reminisce about our Denton years, we both agree that they were the very best of times. We were young and idealistic and believed we were making the world a better place. Our enthusiasm irritated some old-timers at the R-C. One accused us once of “playing journalism.”

Instead of resenting the remark as the insult she had intended, Roy and I embraced it. It became a catch phrase from that day forward. Separately or together, whenever we accomplish something significant, something worthwhile, something we are proud of, we raise a glass and say, “Here’s to playing journalism!”