Witmer Family Website Discussion
Thursday, December 11, 2014
A Fireside Christmas Story
Dad was a very busy man.
He was a high-level employee of the DCASMA – the Defense Contract
Administration Services Management Area.
He was an important FEDERAL employee.
It was rumored that he was on a secret presidential succession
list. In the Cold War era, list like
these were necessary to define exactly who would be in charge if all the
branches of the Federal Government perished in nuclear holocaust. In that case, the Federal Bureaucrats would
take over and my Dad was on the leadership succession list. If enough bureaucrats had been vaporized by
the H-bomb, my Dad might have been in charge of the whole country.
So of course it was completely understandable that my Father
had no time for Christmas shopping. And although my sainted mother was given a
budget for Christmas presents, my father wanted each of his nine children to
open something exclusively from him. Dad
had a solution for his dilemma. At some point during the Christmas-morning-gift-opening
madness, he would produce a stack of envelopes with each of our names carefully
written in longhand. He would call out
our names and we would step up to receive our gift. Each envelope was filled with an eye-popping
amount of cash.
Another hallmark of Witmer-family Christmases was
documenting the event with photography.
My dad was all about using the latest cutting-edge technology to
photograph the tribe. He got his first
Polaroid in the early ‘60s, long before it was mainstream. He had one of the very first Instamatics, a
camera that used drop-in film cartridges.
He used flash cubes when they first came out. And since he was an early adopter of the
latest-and-greatest camera technology, it was a given that there would be a camera
malfunction on Christmas Day. Which inevitably led to my Dad getting all worked
up and then exploding in frustration – which led to a child crying – which led
to the crying child being scolded for ruining the picture with their
unhappiness.
So it was on such a Christmas Morning, probably after a
camera malfunction that wasted both a flash bulb and a frame of color film,
that my dad set the stack of cash filled envelopes near a pile of discarded
gift wrap. And somewhere during the
crying and yelling and picture taking, the pile of discarded wrapping paper was
thrown into the fireplace. And since the
cash-filled envelopes were nowhere to be found after that, we could only assume
that the missing envelopes were mixed in and burned with the paper. What followed made the fuss over the spoiled
pictures seem pleasant by comparison. As
my father’s tirade ramped up, we all began slinking away, leaving my sainted
mother to deal with the fallout.
The next year, the tradition of the envelopes
continued. But from then on, when we
opened the envelopes we found a personal check from my Dad.
Merry Christmas!
P.S.: I will point out that my older brother suddenly came
up with enough money to buy his first car after the fireplace incident …
¶ 9:57 PM 0 comments
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Remember With Us
She loved to laugh. She was a practical joker. She even wrote comic essays and shared them with our family.
Help us remember Michelle. Click on "comments" below and share your favorite funny story about Michelle. ¶ 11:27 AM 11 comments
Help us remember Michelle. Click on "comments" below and share your favorite funny story about Michelle. ¶ 11:27 AM 11 comments
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Post A Message
As many of you know, I've struggled, to keep the comments section of the Witmer Family Website Spam free. I've also lost all the messages on more than one occasion when I had to republish the website. By linking to this "Blog Spot" the website is taking the next step in it's evolution. Please continue to post, your comments and encouragement are important to us.
Just Click on the "Post A Comment" link, on the right, to leave your message. You can read comments by clicking on the same link. You do not need a password ...just select "Other" or "Anonymous" as your Login.
Thanks.... John Witmer ¶ 9:36 PM 100 comments
Just Click on the "Post A Comment" link, on the right, to leave your message. You can read comments by clicking on the same link. You do not need a password ...just select "Other" or "Anonymous" as your Login.
Thanks.... John Witmer ¶ 9:36 PM 100 comments
