I don't have to tell the folks in Oklahoma what happened around here on Christmas Eve. Everyone has a Blizzard of '09 story and here's mine.
Each year at Christmas I load up the wife and kiddo and head out to Cordell and my parent's home. Melissa planned to work for half a day and then we'd be off to mom and dad's around 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve.
That all changed when Elizabeth came in to tell us that there was "something wrong in the fireplace." Let me tell you - when a 3 year old tells you something is wrong in the fireplace, you jump up to see what prompted that comment. It turns out that she was just hearing sleet hitting the metal cover on the chimney. A quick glance at the television and the reports from western Oklahoma prompted us to move up our trip and we loaded the car and out the door we went. We made it Cordell just ahead of the worst parts of the storm and buttoned up all warm and toasty at mom and dad's.
We were expecting my brother James and his family to join us for Christmas lunch, but they were snowed in at his in-laws. Despite their best efforts, there simply was no way to get back to Cordell on Christmas and it would be at least Saturday afternoon before they could get home. That shouldn't have been a problem but James had been kind enough to help Santa pick out the bicycle and helmet Elizabeth wanted for Christmas.
By Friday afternoon, Melissa and I were getting a little stir-crazy and thought we could run down to James' and get the bike and whatever else James needed us to do. We asked James if there was anything special he needed from the house and our instructions were to "squeeze the bread and feed the fish." I have to admit this was a really strange request. I understood feeding the fish, but squeeze the bread?
We drove south of town to James' house and were pleasantly surprised at how clear the roads were. That pleasure turned to frustration when we arrived at James' drive and found a drift three feet high and 25 to 30 feet long that we simply couldn't drive through. We could have turned around gone home, but we still had fish to feed, bread to squeeze, and a bike to get.
We made the 1/4 mile trek through the snow and over the fences to get to the house and found our way inside. I knew why we were feeding the fish, but I had no idea why we were supposed to squeeze the bread. It turns out that James' wife was making friendship bread and it has to be "squeezed" every other day or so as you make it.
After feeding and squeezing, we grabbed the gifts James had asked us to get and the bike and headed back to the truck. We used a plastic tub and rope to make a "sled" for pulling the gifts with us and I carried the bike.
I'm not in the best of shape, but a 1/4 mile walk is usually not too difficult. However, add a 20 pound bicycle, 4 to 12 inches of snow and the fact it's uphill all the way from the house to the truck, it was a real workout.
Of all the memories from this Christmas, I'll always be able to tell Elizabeth how we fed fish, squeezed bread, and "walked miles in knee-deep snow" to get her bicycle. The only thing missing is that it wasn't uphill both ways.
