Christmas 1968

Before I talk about Christmas in La Jolla I wanted to elaborate a bit on my mental state at the time:

I obviously had anxiety issues - and untreated anxiety leads to depression... But that kind of thing wasn't easy to admit back in the day - not even to yourself... (Yeah - they were still locking people up in asylums.)
I was keenly aware that I had difficulties with particular types of events and circumstances... But I saw them as nothing more than problems to be solved... So I "solved" them... My solutions were occasionally creative and frequently bizarre (like walking home from school rather than admitting I didn't know which bus to take) but the point is I always managed to get by (and at times even excel).

Yeah - when I encounter an obstacle my first instinct has always been to look for a way around it - even when it would be much easier to confront it head on :-) That's just the way I'm wired...

The point is that I had an easily treatable mental health problem - if I had only been willing to admit it... Enough said...

Now - on to Christmas:

The summer of 1968 had been one of the happiest of my life - It was a period of stability after moving to Germany then immigrating to Canada (in the midst of my parents' breakup)... But in September we went "mobile" again and by December we had moved 3 more times and I was attending my 3rd high school... Life was a mess... And I was a mess...

By the time Christmas rolled around mom had been (mostly) out of work for 4 months. We were living on child support plus whatever money my mom could talk my aunt out of. It wasn't much - and it definitely wasn't being spent wisely :-) So celebrating Christmas in the customary fashion was pretty much out of the question...

The day before Christmas Saint Paul the biker showed up at our apartment in La Jolla. When he found out that we didn't have a tree he took off and returned a short time later with one sticking out of the trunk of his 1953 Pontiac.
Now - Christmas trees don't usually come equipped with ornaments, lights and a stand so we had to inquire where he got it... He wouldn't say - but he did assure us that nobody would be missing their tree on Christmas eve. So we figured he probably snagged it from a building lobby...
Yeah - I guess the holidays got Saint Paul thinking about not having a family and that's why he came to visit - so we invited him to spend Christmas Eve on the couch...

On Christmas day Saint Paul, Karina and I headed into San Diego to see the movie "Hell's Angels on Wheels" (with Jack Nicholson). It was being shown in one of those huge old theaters and it was absolutely packed - mostly with bikers and sailors... And as it turns out, one of the key scenes in the movie involved a fatal altercation between bikers and sailors... So (as one might imagine) there was a lot of verbal interaction between the 2 groups in the audience... I was afraid it was going to escalate into actual violence - but it didn't (being Christmas and all).

While we were gone mom had prepared us a traditional Christmas dinner - Saint Paul had provided the turkey (we didn't ask)... Note that Saint Paul had also offered to "find" us some presents but we politely declined :-)

So - despite the lack of presents - it turned out to be a very nice (albeit unconventional) Christmas after all...