Memories of a small-town Christmas

Every time Christmas comes around, I recall that old man standing in the snow. It was depressing to me as a young boy and still makes me sad these many years later.

Born in 1946, I spent my life before graduating from high school in tiny Princeton, population 84, situated about 17 miles northeast of Moscow.

My father, Alec Bull, was the Princeton postmaster and with it came special privileges. In those days, small-town postmasters often owned the post office building along with its furniture and equipment. My father owned the Princeton Post Office building, located next to the family home, some 50 feet away.

The post office was in the front of the building and in the back, Dad built a photography darkroom, a laundry area for the family washing and a workbench for his tools.

My older brother, Bill, and I were welcome to come in the back door of the post office if we needed a saw or hammer, were bringing a message from Mom or just wanted to talk to our father. However, if a customer came into the front lobby, we were to get out of sight and remain silent until the customer left.

Once the post office closed for the day at 5 p.m., all rules were suspended. After Dad locked the lobby door and shuttered the stamp, money order and package windows facing the lobby, we engaged in all kinds of activities.

We practiced shooting our .22 rifles at targets tacked to wooden blocks and Dad gave us music lessons on the old, upright piano he had placed in one corner. On Saturday nights, we took baths in small metal tubs in water carried from a pump on the well outside our home to the post office and heated in a boiler atop a wood stove.

The holiday season brought special joy inside the post office.

Dad went to the woods each year and cut Christmas trees for the house and the post office. While Mom and the children (me, Bill and our older sister, Mary) decorated the tree in the house and painted winter scenes on the windows with white shoe polish, Dad decorated the post office lobby.

He wrote in his diary: “At Christmastime, the post office at Princeton is decorated with evergreen boughs, a wreath, candles and a real moss-covered tree fresh out of the woods.”

People enjoyed their trips to the post office during the holidays, seeing these decorations and enjoying the pleasant scent of the white pine Christmas tree.

But the best part of Christmastime in the post office for Bill and me came on Sundays when the building was closed for business. Because of the high volume of Christmas cards and packages being sent during the holiday season, the incoming mail was also delivered to the closed post offices on Sundays. The postmaster opened the post office side door when the truck bringing the mail arrived.

Letters needed to be sorted and placed in the individual boxes and packages arranged in piles for each family before the post office opened again on Monday and more mail arrived. Dad turned it into a family affair, allowing Bill and me to help sort the cards and letters and place them in the correct boxes, plus empty the canvas sacks stuffed with packages. If customers received a package, a package-notification card was placed in their lobby mailbox informing them and they would take it to the package window to claim their package.

Dad and Mom spent much of those Sundays in the post office looking through the catalogues that also arrived from Sears and Roebucks and Montgomery Wards. Dad liked to check out the hunting rifles while Mom focused on women’s clothing. My brother and I didn’t care about catalogues; we were looking for more interesting treasure — packages from relatives.

Those we would set aside to open when the sorting was all done and later place the individual, wrapped presents inside under the Christmas tree in the house.

At some later date before Christmas, when both parents were in the post office, Bill and I took turns opening our presents, one brother standing guard at the front door watching for Mom or Dad coming back from the post office. We carefully rewrapped each present after inspecting it. We never bothered opening presents from our grandmother because she always sent us flannel, long-sleeved shirts. Boring.

The highlight of this illegal activity was the year we discovered our rich Uncle George in California sent us an American Flyer electric railroad set. Ecstasy! We unwrapped it, lusted and drooled over it, and rewrapped it several times before Christmas, hardly able to believe our good fortune. Flannel shirts couldn’t compete with electric trains.

Another tradition was buying presents for family members. Bill and I saved money during the year earned from doing household chores and a small weekly allowance. We kept this money in our separate banks.

One Christmas, I bought presents for everyone and still had money left over. I had some of it in my pants pocket and decided to treat myself to some candy. We attended school in Potlatch, 3 miles west of Princeton, and during the noon hour, I headed to the nearby Potlatch Mercantile store to cruise the candy section.

It started snowing and I was glad I was wearing my coat and wool stocking cap. Approaching the entrance, I saw an old man standing in front of a store window display lit up with Christmas lights, decorations and a miniature Christmas tree. The man had no hat and snow was collecting on his bare head. His hands were stuck in the pockets of his ragged coat and he hadn’t shaved in a long time.

I came to a stop and watched, at the same time recognizing him. It was Old Sam, as he was known, a resident of Princeton I saw often hanging around the post office lobby and the town’s gas station. He lived alone in a decrepit trailer near the railroad tracks. Somebody must have given him a ride to Potlatch for some reason, maybe to see the town’s doctor.

He was motionless and kept staring at the festive display while snow collected on his head and shoulders. I wondered what Christmas would be like for Sam. Then I knew, and knew what I should do. I would need the rest of the money in my bank.

I turned around and went back to school.

When I got off the school bus in Princeton that afternoon, I headed straight for my bank and began digging out my cash. Mom happened by and asked what I was doing. I told her of seeing Old Sam, standing in the snow with no hat and probably no gloves.

“I’m going to buy him a hat and some warm gloves for Christmas,” I said. “Put them in a bag and drop them in front of the door to his trailer and sneak away. He won’t know who left him a Christmas present. I don’t think anyone else will remember him at Christmas.”

I waited for Mom’s encouraging words of approval but she was silent. I looked up at her, wondering why she wasn’t happy for what I was doing.

“Andy, Dad and I have known Sam for a long time. He has family in the area but they don’t have much to do with him because he’s an alcoholic. He can buy his own hat and gloves but he chooses to spend most of his money on beer and whiskey. He hangs around the tavern too much. Save your money.”

So I didn’t buy Old Sam a hat and gloves that Christmas. Instead, I bought myself a model car kit.

Several months later, the man who owned the gas station realized he hadn’t seen Sam for some time.

That evening after supper, I heard my parents talking in the kitchen. Sam had been found dead inside his trailer.

It took me a long time to go to sleep that night. I wished I had bought Sam the hat and gloves.

Every holiday season I recall those good times in the Princeton post office when the scent of white pine drifted in the air from the Christmas tree in the lobby and fire crackled in the potbellied wood stove in the work area where my brother and I sorted the mail, placed it in the right mailboxes facing the lobby and pulled packages out of the canvas mail bags, hoping to see one addressed to the Bull Family.

I also remember Sam each Christmas. And in his memory, I donate to a charitable organization that helps people like him at Christmas and all year around.

Better late than never.

Bull is a former sports reporter for the Tribune as well as a longtime freelance contributer who now lives in Oregon. He may be contacted at andybull253@gmail.com.