Hello again from Luquillo,

Happy Christmas and prosperous and productive New Year wishes to you all! Here is an old Christmas story that we have dusted off and tightened up for your enjoyment. Please let me know what you think when you have a spare moment.

A CHRISTMAS STORY

During the World War II years, weekends and holidays at our Beverly Hills home took on a rhythm all their own. My father and mother opened our doors wide to servicemen and women on pass in the Los Angeles area. Mom had given our address to the USO and the Hollywood Canteen, and soon buses began pulling up with soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen eager to spend an afternoon lounging around the swimming pool at a movie actor’s house.

Dad would leave the front door ajar with a sign that read, COME ON IN, OUR SERVANTS ARE AT LOCKHEED. It wasn’t a joke—our cook and butler had left us for better-paying and far more patriotic work in the defense industry. Mom and my sister Patricia spent their mornings assembling trays of fancy hors d’oeuvres, often with the help of actresses Martha Raye and Joan Blondell, who would drop by to pitch in. My job was to help Dad: lug charcoal to the barbecue, fill the ice bucket, and keep the big metal cooler by the pool stocked with beer and soft drinks. When everything was ready, I stationed myself at the front door as an unofficial greeter, anxiously awaiting the arrival of men in crisp uniforms, each one looking impossibly heroic to my young eyes.

One Sunday, a bus brought a group of patients—mostly amputees—from a military hospital in San Diego. They treasured that single day of escape: a chance to dive into a swimming pool, stretch out in the sun, and, for a few hours, feel like themselves again. I still see it clearly—their crutches and prosthetic limbs stacked in a haphazard pile along the pool’s edge while they cooled off in the shimmering blue water.

I listened closely to the scraps of stories they shared—sea battles, narrow escapes, friends lost and found. I tried to remember every word long enough to record it in the little journal my parents had given me for my birthday.

The days always ended the same way: with a buffet of barbecued hamburgers and hot dogs, corn-on-the-cob, and avocados picked from our backyard tree, all washed down with cold beer or soft drinks. Around six o’clock, the buses returned. The men would thank my parents, Dad would boom, “Come back whenever you can, boys,” and Mom would hug each one of them as if they were her own.

Many wrote to her throughout the war—V-mail letters from far-flung places—telling her how they were doing and remembering the afternoon they had spent around our pool listening to Dad’s storehouse of Hollywood tales.

---

More than forty years later, on a sunny Christmas Eve in 1978, I sailed my 40-foot cutter Hobson’s Choice into Nanny Cay marina on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. Twilight was settling in as I tied up at the dock. I needed the boat hauled out for some urgent welding on the rudder—I had damaged it on a shoal—and I was due to pick up a newlywed couple the next day for their ten-day sailing honeymoon.

The long concrete pier was deserted except for a noisy flock of seabirds. As I headed toward the marina office in hopes of finding someone—anyone—an elderly, grey-haired fellow stepped out of a weathered wooden barge tied to the pier. He introduced himself as the dockyard manager and asked if I needed help.

I explained my dilemma. He shook his head sympathetically. “It’s Christmas Eve. I sent everyone home early—they won’t be back until Monday morning.” Trying to mask my disappointment, I gave him my name and asked to be first in line when work resumed.

He looked at me for a long moment and said, “You any relation to that English movie actor?”

“I’m his son,” I replied.

A slow grin spread across his face. “I’ll get some help and have you hauled out in a few minutes. I’ll start welding as soon as the rudder’s dry.”

Puzzled, I asked what had changed his mind.

“I spent a wonderful Christmas Day at your home,” he said. “I was a gunner’s mate on a destroyer during WWII, just before we shipped out to the Pacific. Your family shared your Christmas with me and my buddies. I never got to thank your parents properly for their kindness.” He paused, looked me up and down. “I’ll bet you were that little tow-headed squirt running around with trays of sandwiches, making sure we had plenty of cold beer.”

He finished welding around nine that evening and his crew relaunched the boat. When I reached for my wallet, he put a hand on my arm.

“Let’s just chalk this up to fine old memories, Cap’n,” he said. “You don’t owe me a thing.”

As I sailed with the tide, I felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the Caribbean night or the mug of rum in my hand. I was thinking about the other aging veterans, scattered across America, Britain, and Australia—men who still carried with them the memory of a single afternoon, long ago, spent in our backyard in Beverly Hills.

(note from the one who posts these things – if that didn’t bring a tear to your eye, maybe you should call Alan and talk to him!)