He caused a little trouble, sure, but Berkeley Brown didn't deserve it.
Berk's name was buried at the bottom of Santa's list of good girls and boys. And, it was buried there for eternity.
Poor bastard.
Berk spent every holiday season for most of my life getting busted for talking in class, getting mad at his mom and telling fart jokes. Thousands of people drove or strolled down Christmas Carol Lane in Eureka, actually in Cutten, and they all talked about the terrible things Berk must've done to result in the neighbors putting his name at the bottom of Santa's list that was part of their lawn display.
Well, we all figured people couldn't drive past the Ambrosinis house and see the beautiful holiday display without wondering, "What the hell kind'a kid must that Berk be? There's 30 names on that list and the people in that house specifically put his name at the end of the list. Geesuz! He must be somethin' else, that kid, huh?"
Oh, and we all told Berk that the Ambrosinis really did make a list of the neighborhood kids, weighed the good and bad and literally decided that Berk was the biggest trouble-maker of the bunch. Jim Tyler told him. I told him. All the guys we played touch football with in front of the Ambrosini's house agreed with us, at least giving tacit approval to our theory that the lawn display was reflective of what Santa Claus would think if there was a Santa Claus and he did make a list ... did check it twice ... and then decided who was naughty and/or nice.
Christmas Carol Lane probably still exists in some form or another. A few lights or some of those Rite Aid reindeer moving eerily in the dark. But, it's nothing like it was in the early 1970s when every family on boths sides of McClaskey Lane had full holiday displays, most all made by hand by some flustered father on a foggy Sunday afternoon in August.
God, that was something else. And, I'm not even a big Christmas guy, you know? The Ambrosini's Rudolph display and the Bish family's decorations down the street -- amazing. The McKeown family's Peanuts display blew my mind back when people were often so at a loss for words that they said, "That blows my mind!"
Berk was a member of the McKeown family, arguably the most complex linkage of relatives in Eureka. Jerry McKeown married Berk's mom...um, Mrs. McKeown. Mr. and Mrs. McKeown had two sons -- Mike and Jay. Then, out of the blue, Mr. McKeown's daughter Karen started showing up, leaving me more than a touch flustered every time I saw her. (Girls, especially cute girls, left me flustered for years.)
One day it's all Berk and the bunch of us guys, and his little brothers, then ... boom! This girl starts showing up and attracting my attention -- not that anybody knew she was attracting my attention until 2, 3 years had passed. It took that long to realize it wasn't that I couldn't talk to girls, but that I couldn't make conversation with one unless they really, really interested me.(Ted-itor's Note: People who pay attention will note that I'm blogging my life story in bits and pieces.)
Well, then, Kaci McKeown was born and suddenly the days became really interesting hanging out with what was the family I'd wanted before I was old enough to realize how complicated families really become. Honestly, the idea of moms and dads doing what all of us boys talked about doing (if we could ever find a girl to go along) never came up -- until Kaci's arrival was pending.
Christmas Carol Lane would be so busy, would attract so many visitors, that there'd be bumper-to-bumper traffic most nights at the height of the holiday season. I remember one night when we climbed up on the McKeown's roof and shouted things, made strange noises, just so we could laugh at the reaction of a little kid when it sounded like Charlie Brown had just belched, "I cut a fart!" (We were, oh, 13 years old. It wasn't intended to be humor as an art form.)
The true Christmas Carol Lane slowly disappeared over time. All sorts of bad stuff started happening when the Peanuts display disappeared, but that was my problem. By the time I found out that one of the coolest moms on the block had actually been an alcoholic, I started wishing the people who tried to keep Christmas Carol Lane alive would let the whole thing go, you know? It wasn't the same driving my kids down Christmas Carol Lane knowing that this dad had cheated on that mom and that the kid who lived in the house over there had been killed.
That type stuff was one of the curses of being born, raised and living in Eureka. There weren't any childhood images left by the time I was a grown man. I was around long enough to hear about the human frailities of most of the people on Christmas Carol Lane. And, I developed my own frailities that made shouting at kids as they marveled at the McKeown's lawn display seem harmless.
Still, though, the last time I drove down Christmas Carol Lane ... that poor bastard Berk still had his name listed dead last on Santa's list. So, as a result, I'm fixing to call Berk, or maybe drop an e-mail, to remind him that there was, obviously, some reason that the Ambrosinis put the names in that order.
Berk's 53 years old now, but he must know that Les and Dorothy Ambrosini wouldn't have left such a thing as the names on the list to chance. Mrs. Ambrosini was nice and she seemed really funny and, hell, Mr. Ambrosini was a serious guy who was always about serious endeavors -- which, I recall, was a lot like his son Alan was a kid. (Keith Ambrosini? Not so serious, but arguably the best baseball player almost nobody ever talks about anymore.) So, I'll call Berk, I think because...
Because I like thinking about Christmas Carol Lane.
