Yevet Tenney

This morning I climbed in my van and caught a glimpse of a silver thread of hair mingled with the normally brownish-gold ones. I wasn’t horrified or even sad. I deserve those sliver threads; after all I am at the tail-end of a half a century, and I have seen a few sunrises and sunsets in my young life.

Sometimes I look at the glitter and ostentatious glow of Christmas with a feeling of sorrow.

Shortly after Reg and I were married, we invited some friends over for a Christmas party. The tree shimmered with decorations of red and gold. Packages tied in shining bows snuggled under the tree. Nametags spelled the names of each recipient. There was no mistake. Every man, woman and child would receive two or three gifts and when Santa came, it would be a magnificent celebration of giving and getting.

I can’t help but wonder how it must have felt for the Pilgrims to have stood on Plymouth Rock and gazed out into the vast gray ocean as the windswept waves slapped the shores of a freezing, uninviting wilderness.

Many years ago while I was involved in the dairy business, a most interesting thing took place. Naturally it involved a bit of questionable judgment that compounded itself, and things got worse.

This is how it’s played.

You choose sides. Each team grabs hold of one end of a sturdy rope that is stretched across the pig mire pond. When the judge says go, you dig your heels in the dirt and pull. The strongest team will pull the weaker team into the pig mire. That’s how it is with tug of war.