Some of the best presents are usually the unexpected ones. These usually come from distant relatives. One in particular I still have and cherish to this day. It was a large framed poster...of course to a 9 year old this equates to getting a pair of wool slacks 2 sizes too small. However we hung it on my wall and before bed every night I would just look at it and get lost in its awesome majesty. It's a 1930's painting by an artist named Jaro Hess titled, "Adventure in Story Land" and it's a huge painting of all the major fairy tales taking place in one setting.


There were also presents I was very adamant about getting and begged continually for that once I got just plain sucked. One in particular was Toy Biz' 1993   Voice activated robot! It looked Suh-Weet in the commercials. It transformed from a vehicle to a battle ready robot and fired missiles, all at the command of your voice. I remember when we got it my brother and I put it on the floor and told it some commands, the machine didn't recognize the commands most of the time and it only traveled in forward and reverse which made terrorizing our cat exceedingly difficult.





Another thing I looked forward to around the Holidays was family. It was always fun as a kid seeing my distant cousins and aunts n' uncles blah blah blah... What I really looked forward to was seeing the more interesting vkimo clansmen. There were only a handful and no one kept in touch with them or really knew just how they were related to anyone else. Two in particular came to mind. Christmas as my great grandmother's house was one of them. You could count on seeing Auntie Hazel who sported the same moo moo dress since the 70s, and little June with her pet rabbit who bit everyone. Then there was a mountain of a man who everyone called "Big John" and this dude was enormous. He must have weighed 400 pounds easy and wore a pair of overalls he must have got second hand from Paul Bunyan. I remember my mom saying he lived in a shack and didn't own a telephone. He just sat there and ate, and ate, and ate. Another interesting relative I encountered at my Uncle's place. He was around 40 and autistic, name was Dallas. We had to drive him home after Christmas dinner every year because he couldn't drive. I remember he was always picking at his teeth and a little fidgety. My dad would always mess (All in good fun...I think) with him on the drive, saying things like, "Hey Dallas, I need to rest come take the wheel" or "Pass me a beer out of the glove box would ya?" It was kind of amusing. The most incredible thing though was that Dallas had an encyclopedic knowledge of 80s music. He could tell you the producer, album year, title and anything you wanted to know. Sadly it's been years since I've seen Dallas or Big John but the memories are always there to make me smile.