[thenightwriterblog] The Night Writer: A ghost of Christmas programs past

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Posted by The Night Writer:
A ghost of Christmas programs past
http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1198041452.shtml


   The Mall Diva's Christmas program, Eclectica, went off as scheduled
   last Sunday before a packed house that included my mother who flew in
   from Missouri. The show was great with the only flubs being the
   charming ones that somehow make a show a more personal experience for
   everyone. Oh, and a couple of young angels from the manger scene got
   stage fright and refused to go on, but I'm sure it was noticeable only
   to their parents and the cast.
   Of course, it all reminded me of the many Christmas programs I had
   participated in as a child, especially since I had my mom sitting next
   to me. The first one I can remember (barely) was when I was three or
   four and it must have been at an Air Base where my father was
   stationed. As I recall there wasn't a stage as such, just something
   like a gymnasium floor with rows of seats in front of the performance
   area. I can remember sitting in a chair at the back of the "stage"
   while other acts performed before my group got to do our thing. I have
   no idea what our act was, but my parents caught my solo performance as
   I waited...casually picking my nose. Hearing about it often afterwards
   helped keep that in my memory banks.
   My next solo was in kindergarten when our class of 12 performed "The
   Twelve Days of Christmas". I was "Five golden rings!" I also couldn't
   carry a tune in a bucket, which makes me think that perhaps my
   kindergarten teacher had some kind of twisted sense of humor. After
   all, she also assigned the kid with the lisp the part of "Seven swans
   a'swimming." It's safe to say we brought down the house.
   But the one performance I've especially been thinking about the last
   few days came when I was in fourth, or perhaps fifth, grade, when my
   dad was out of the service and we were living in Indianapolis. It was
   at Harrison Hill Elementary, either in Mrs. Boaz's class in 1968 or
   Mrs. Zinn's in '69. The Viet Nam war was going on and I remember our
   teacher, whichever one it was, telling us that a local soldier had
   written a poem (he may have even been a former student of hers), and
   that it had been set to music and that a group of us boys were going
   to sing the new song in the program. Pretty cool beans for a bunch of
   boys at that time, especially for my best friend Trey and I, because
   it meant we could wear our toy army helmets and bring our guns (I was
   especially proud of my Thompson submachine gun replica). We practiced
   that song for several weeks, and I remember it was a pretty grim one.
   It didn't seem much like a Christmas song at all, but the teacher said
   that it was going to fit into the program.
   This show was just going to be a passing reference as I recounted some
   other programs, but I remembered the opening lines of that song and
   started wondering who the author was and what ever had happened to
   him. With the power of [1]Google I searched the opening line:

      "Take a man and put him alone, put him 12,000 miles from home."
                                      
   To my amazement, I found the poem on several websites, including that
   of a sometime commenter here, joatmoaf's [2]I Love Jet Noise. None of
   them had an author name, but several included the citation that it was
   found in the pocket of a dead Marine in the Quang Tri Province, June
   of '69. Joatmoaf listed the whole poem, although updated for Iraq. The
   first verse was pretty much how I remembered it, though:

                       Take a man and put him alone,
                  Put him twelve thousand miles from home.
                     Empty his heart of all but blood,
                      Make him live in sweat and mud.

   The rest of the poem doesn't register with me, though it does seem
   even grimmer than what I remembered. Definitely not Christmas program
   material. While I don't remember all the words of the song we sung, I
   know they weren't happy ones. I do remember what happened next. The
   emcee of the program was a sixth-grader, dressed as Santa Claus. He'd
   been a great and jolly Santa all evening, but this time he came out,
   as planned, and spoke to us "soldiers" kneeling on the stage. He said
   that once upon a time there had been a young family with a new baby
   that hadn't even been able to find a room in an inn and had had to
   give birth to their son in a stable. He said that even though things
   looked bad for them, they had had hope. When he finished his speech we
   exited backstage while an adult came up. As I led our small group down
   some steps I heard the adult say that the author of the poem was in
   the audience that night, and I heard a loud round of applause. I never
   did see or meet him. The show continued with Christmas carols about
   the newborn king.
   Viewed through the fog of nearly 40 years, it almost seems like
   another world. Indeed, a world where kids could wear army gear and
   bring toy guns into the building, and where a Christmas program could
   mention the Savior and sing songs about His birth. It is also almost
   surreal that I could have been that close to the origins of what some
   might consider almost an urban legend in our internet age. The dead
   marine in Quang Tri might be apocryphal, but I remember what our
   teacher told us and I remember singing that song, and I remember the
   soldier being introduced, even if I never saw him.
   I wish I had been able to shake his hand.

References

   1. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22take+a+man+and+put+him+alone%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
   2. http://joatmoaf.typepad.com/i_love_jet_noise/2006/05/who_cares_if_a_.html