Dreams of Christmas Past

In 1968, during the Vietnam War, I was a Cub Scout and my mother was our Den Mother. We lived in Santa Monica at that time, in a rather conservative part of town and most of the Scouts attended Saint Monica's.

For our Christmas community project my mom organized a trip to the Veteran's Hospital. We were to hand out home made Christmas Cards and sing carols. We had fun making cards, a decollage of older cards and crayons. It was craftsy. We brushed up on songs like, "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells," and, "We Three Kings of Orientar, Tried to Smoke a Rubber Cigar," much to her horror.

However on the day we sung like angels out in the hallways, for we children were not allowed into the wards. Yet the mothers went in among the wounded and maimed soldiers to hand out our home made cards. What they saw shocked their socialite souls and some got visibly ill. Yet, I heard our singing and our gifts made grown men cry and also made some think they were not forgotten.

The carnage of war is a horrible thing and I think my mother wanted to point that out in her own subversive way but did it a manner that was true to her nature. She always had to try and help out.