Chirldren's Christmas

Outside it was a beautiful California day, sunny and warm, and the Rio Hondo Event Center had decorated the terrace outside our meeting ballroom with a ring of red poinsettia plants, which framed the vista of the green and undulating golf course with its tall trees.

Serenaded by the expert fingers of Dr. Ed Potter on the piano and led in familiar seasonal songs by Johnny and his rousing baritone, we welcomed our young guests, first graders from each of Downey’s K-5 elementary schools, plus their teachers and principals, sixty in all.  The girls were dressed up, some in green velvet blouses and sparkly white dresses, and some of the boys had red bow ties.  The teachers managed to be outstanding in red.

Tables were decorated with Christmas tree balls and filigree packages in red and blue and gold and green.  We enjoyed our usual delicious buffet choices, but the kids, for whom this will be the only Christmas party and presents they will have, barely touched the food we provided in a separate buffet line.  Excitement had gotten the better of their appetites.

At last Santa came, resplendent in his red velvet suit, black boots and white fur trim.  His eyebrows were like wonderful plumes and he had glistening white ringlets and a beard.  Ready to assist him were the team of Dan Fox taking pictures for the Hubbub and Kevin MacDonald, seated in front of Santa, taking pictures of each child with Santa, and a group photo of each school’s contingent.  The pictures are more of our clubs’ souvenir presents to each child.

Shirley Johnson sat on Santa’s left and made sure each child had a bag of goodies while on Santa’s right was the pile of big presents which we had wrapped in pink and blue last week.   Girls got Barbies and the boys got Hot  Wheels, or their equivalent. And thanks for that to committee members Dahlya McDonald and Patricia Megallon. 

The proceedings were emceed by the Superintendent of the DUSD, our Dr. John Garcia, who announced every child’s name when the school was called.  While we waited for Santa, Larry Garces had filled the time creatively by going to each table and asking the children – and their bashful teachers – what they hoped for, for Christmas.

If this reporter has forgotten to thank anyone, please consider yourself appreciated.  One can’t be sure, but under that red hat and the luxuriant   white hair – didn’t that look like Wayne Wilcox?

The smiles of the children were captivating, but even bigger smiles were on the faces of those who truly were experiencing the holiday spirit – the Rotarians.  When we thanked the teachers and principals for coming, they tried to thank us for putting on the party.  But it is we who are thankful for the opportunity to do something that means so much as this does to these youngsters.

As we watched the children line up and saw how patiently Santa talked and laughed with each one, some Rotarians seemed in a pensive mood.  This reporter asked several table mates how they remembered their childhood  Christmases. 

For Harold Tseklenis the years were spent in the western part of the Peloponnese in Greece, in Pyrgos, which is about 16 kilometers west of Olympia in the state of Elis.  It snows about every ten years in Greece, Harold said, and you could see dustings on the`interior mountains.

Bob Flynn was born right here in Los Angeles and as a boy lived on 54^th Street and 6th Avenue, near Crenshaw and Carson. Asked about snow Bob remembered – and the records bear this out – that it has snowed in Los Angeles, and there was a trace in December 1935.  Bob was there.

Jorge Montero celebrated his childhood holidays in Portoviejo in Ecuador, in a little town in the Andes near Cuenca, the sixth largest city in the country.   Portoviejo lies in a warm fertile river valley near the Pacific Ocean, but it is on the slopes of the Andes, which sport the tallest mountains in the Western Hemisphere. Towering Chimborazo and Cotopaxi always have a cap of snow.

Closer to home, although Dr. Ed Potter went to high school in Sparks, Nevada, just outside of Reno, he spent his boyhood in Salina, Kansas, one of the world’s largest wheat-producing areas.  Was there snow?  You bet, great piles and drifts of it, up to ten feet tall.  Or so they must have seemed, to little Ed.

This reporter also asked Bill Kirkwood where he spent his boyhood, and since he answered The North Pole, he must have many fascinating stories to tell us.  Perhaps next week, at our own holiday luncheon, the last meeting before we go into hibernation and don’t meet again until January 6.

Yes, on second thought, that did look like Wayne.