Christmas Trees

We had lined both side of our driveway with a variety of pine trees, what we called evergreens, each a different size, the tallest by the road. Before mid-November, my Dad would take me to where he had spotted a good tree, a place with no houses near, in his travels to the bars, the beer gartens, he frequented around the county to whet his whistle. A good tree was about five feet tall, no wide and not thin. We'd dig up the tree, keeping a big root ball, place it in a metal wash tub, which was about 2' in diameter and a foot deep, carry the tub back to the car and set it in the trunk. We kept the tree outside until a week before Christmas, unless it got too cold, which it did most winters, and then we'd put it in the celler by a window. We'd bring the evergreen up into the living room, still in its tub, center it on one wall, (the recliner squeezed into a bedroom) and my sisters would decorate the tree. After the holidays, we took it back down to the basement where I watered it every week until spring. Dad and I would lug the tree out, each with a hand on the tub's handles and one underneath. We'd plant it next in line along the driveway, moving toward the house, making our history that way.