December 15, 1977: Flying with Tony in Boston
	Return to Index for 1977

Christmas, 1977, found me with Judy, Bob, Mom, Ted and Jennifer back at her house outside Elon, North Carolina. Actually, it seems as if these Christmas pictures are an easy way to mark the passage of a year. This year, though, there has been a change.

Since the gifts that I had already purchased for everyone were small, I was able to pack them in a large box, so I decided that this year I would fly down to Charlotte, collect my Mom, and then drive her car up to Elon to my sister's house. But this year, instead of meeting Mom and the house on Somerset Drive, I will get to see her new condominium for the first time.

The house that I grew up in, and that Mom has occupied since 1951 and through my Dad's death in 1974, is in South Charlotte. The area was developing rapidly when we moved there, and even though we were considered pretty far out of the city back then, development had pushed south quickly, and by this year has extended most of the way to Pineville. The homes on Somerset Drive, while decently kept-up, were showing their age, and many of the neighbors Mom used to have had moved elsewhere.

Mom had also been discovering that living in our old house was getting to be a chore; it was old, and there was always something needing to be fixed. She had seen one of her close bridge friends, Mrs. Segrest, move from Somerset to some newly-built condos further out Park Road, and so she looked into doing the same thing.

The builder was anxious to fill the condos, and he offered to buy the Somerset Drive house quickly and help Mom get moved. Then he would make any repairs or improvements the house needed and sell it (certainly not something my Mom wanted to have to worry with). So in September, my sister came down to Charlotte to help my Mom move from Somerset Drive to the new condos off Park Road about three miles further out.

Below, left, is an aerial view showing where my Mom is now, and at the right is a view of the condo, taken from the starred position and looking basically south:

Here's another case where the views available to me in 2019 don't match up with the reality at a particular time in the past. The new condos right along Park Road were not there in 1977; they won't be built for another 30 years or so. My Mom's condo development is a small one; there are just two buildings with six units in each. All the units are the same size- two bedroom, two bath units. My Mom's condo is the first-floor unit on the north side of the north building.

My Mom likes the condo; it is just the right size for her and much easier to take care of than the house she used to have. It is also a good deal more modern, having just been built (our Somerset Drive house had been built in the 1940s). Everything my Mom needs is nearby, including a grocery store and pharmacy, and she can walk to both of them.

I took a taxi in from the airport, spent the 23rd with Mom, playing bridge and eating out. On Christmas Eve, the two of us drove up to my sister's house, and I got us rooms at a local motel. I want to show where, exactly, my sister is, but the difficulty I have is that between my visit this Christmas and the time at which I am writing this online narrative (early mid-2019), a lot has changed, physically, in Elon, Burlington, and North Carolina, with the result that the way one gets to my sister's farm today is much different than it was this Christmas.

Today, to get to my sister's farm, I followed the same route that I have driven for fifteen years to get near to her house. Getting from Charlotte to the vicinity of Elon is a simple matter of getting on Interstate 85 north from Charlotte towards Greensboro, and staying on that highway after it becomes coterminus with Interstate 40 and heads more east to Raleigh.

The exit for Elon College (even that name has changed, as Elon College has become Elon University the town has changed its name officially to simply "Elon") put you on Huffman Mill Road- actually one of the streets which, if you follow it northeast, will take you to Burlington, NC, the larger city just east of Elon.

So just off the exit from the Interstate, you have to double back on Garden Road which actually goes northwest more towards Elon (blue route). It connects to South Williamson Avenue, which you take north, across US Highway 70, through the center of Elon and out to the north, eventually angling off to the northwest.

In the first decade of the 21st century, development south of Elon and Gibsonville led to a huge new shopping area along Interstate 85, and so a new exit was constructed for access to the expressway. At the same time, a bypass was built around Elon, so that so much traffic wouldn't be going right through the center of town and right through the campus. So now, to get to the side of Elon on which my sister lives, you can get off Interstate 85 at that new exit, and take the much-faster bypass around to her side of the college town (green route).

Anyway, once you get to the north side of Elon, my sister's farm is about three miles to the northwest, off Elon-Ossipee Road.

My sister has a really nice farm a quarter mile west of Elon-Ossipee Road. She's been in Burlington since college, and when she married Bob they bought a piece of land and built a house on it. That was ten or eleven years ago. Their two kids, live at home of course; Ted is 8 and Jennifer ("Jeffie") is 7.

Judy and Bob bought the land and then built a house on it; the only structure they kept when they bought the property was the old red country barn down by the road. That's where the other residents of Greyfield Farms, as Judy has begun to call it, reside; those would be my sister's horses.

There's an aerial view of my sister's property at left, but of course it doesn't show the farm as it looked this year. The biggest change between then and now (as I write this) was the construction of a new, modern, cement-floored barn up near the house, to take the place of the vintage dirt-floored old one.

I always like visiting my sister and Bob (and the kids, of course), not least because it is a chance for me to get out of my city environment and into a more pastoral one. It's good for the soul.

The Barbour Christmas Tree

When Mom and I arrived at Greyfield Farms in the early afternoon, we got all the gifts that we'd brought with us and put them under the tree that Judy and Bob had already set up. Once this was done, the tree looked so nice that I thought I would record it for posterity- because shortly after the kids get up tomorrow, the playroom (where the tree is set up) will be something of a disaster area.

Jeffie and Friend

I've always heard that one should never gift someone with fauna that needs to be taken care of, unless, and this is very important, they have asked for the specific kind of fauna repeatedly, appear to be genuinely serious, are emotionally stable, and know a good vet who works cheap.

This Christmas, apparently, all of those criteria were met (except, perhaps, for the cheap vet part- if there is such a thing) and so Jeffie was gifted with a dachshund puppy named Teckel (another German name for Dachshund is Teckelhund)

This little dog (which was, I must admit, cute as a button, but then I think all puppies and kittens fall into that category) was the genesis of what has, today in 2019, become, after a long succession of intermediate canines, a passel of seven dachshunds. Along the way have been a variety of dogs, big and small (as well as a few cats here and there), kept inside and out, friendly and aloof, and with a range of personalities wider than you might imagine. (There was also, I recall, a personalized license plate advertising Teckel's breed.)

In the last few years, my sister has actually been breeding dachshunds, and currently has seven of them. (Breeding and selling animals only really "works" when you understand that, eventually, those little puppies that some female animal produces for your enjoyment will have to find their own forever homes. Keeping them all never seems to work. My sister has, apparently, achieved some happy medium of keeping some and giving some out for adoption, although when the FedEx truck passes by, the barking and running to the window reminds of nothing so much as lemmings (but without the whole "drown themselves in the sea" thing). They are, I admit, fun to watch, and I can't really fault her at all, seeing as how there are four cats in my own house, but I would point out that my cats are generally quieter, and seem to have absolutely no interest in the FedEx truck, which comes a lot closer to my front window than it does passing by on the road 1/8 mile from Judy's.

Christmas Morning at the Barbours'

I asked my sister about the puppy, as I'd forgotten it entirely, and it was from her that I got the information for this description of that picture of Jeffie. She did go on to tell me that the Barbour's first experience with a dachshund turned out to be a sad one, as the little puppy was with them us all too briefly. She turned out to have a dangerous puppy intestinal illness and could not be saved- and the experience was devastating for the family. As I said, though, their first experiences was far, far, from their last.

I wish my picture at left, taken on Christmas Morning, had turned out better (and that I'd gotten Mom in it, too). From the left are Bob holding Jeffie (now 6-going-on-7), Ted (8-going-on-9), and my sister (age not disclosed). On some days, my sister reminds me of the Land'o'Lakes Indian woman, while on other days she's more Judy Collins. (I know, you probably don't see the resemblance; what can I say?).

Regardless of who she might or might not look like, my sister and her family are always a pleasure to visit- so much so that departure time is always a chore. (I used to think that Jeffie didn't like me, as the first question she always asked me when I came to visit was "When are you leaving?" But I like my sister's interpretation- that Jeffie needed to know how much time she'd have to spend with me and not be blindsided when I got up to leave.)

At my departure, I wanted to go away with some good pictures of the kids. (If I'd forgotten the year the picture was taken, Jeffie's tee shirt would have been a good clue.)

Ah, the virtues of preparedness. Jeffie seems OK with our departure, but it's Ted that's having a hard time. (Either that, or its the beginning of his aversion to having his picture taken.)

We had a really good Christmas, and I look forward to my next visit to my sister and her family.

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	December 15, 1977: Flying with Tony in Boston
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