CHRISTMAS – May 14, 2014 (Wed)
I once stole a Christmas tree.

There was a grocery store, a neighborhood market of sorts, at the corner of Jay and Child Streets. I lived just off Child. in half a rented house (the kitchen was upstairs!).

The grocery store had a lot of Christmas trees that year, and they left most of them outside when they closed up at night.

I drove our cameraman, Charlie Gleason, home most nights after the 11 PM news on Ch. 8 — only it was Ch. 10 back then, till it became Ch. 8 sometime after the New Year. I was Floor Manager on the 11 PM News in those days; Charlie was a cameraman.

Charlie and his new wife had an apartment, on Child Street, about three blocks from ours.

“The grocery store must sell so many trees during the day,” he said, “they can afford to leave them outside at night, the bastards.”

A light went off in my head. That night I had trouble sleeping thinking about it. I only made $50 week, the same as I made working radio alone; I came to TV for the same salary; $50 a week, net $41.17 after deductions. A free Christmas tree would make all the difference in the world.

The next night the trees were there, bound up in the middle for easier selection and storage. I counted them while we waited for the light to change (I got as far as fifteen). “Pick out a good one,” I told Charlie, while I looked for a stray pedestrian or two at a quarter to midnight.

“Ain’t nobody around,” Charlie said, sotto-voice. “Right,” I said, maneuvering the car up and over the curb. “This one looks pretty good,” he whispered. “Hold it tight,” I said, dropping the gear into first and picking up speed.

He grasped the tree and held it against the side of the car, his arm dangling out the window. It was cold that night; about 17. Luckily, we did not have far to go.
I stored the tree on the back porch, and quickly took Charlie on home.

“Not a word to anyone,” I told him; “especially not to your wife, and especially to mine! And nobody, not a soul, at the studio!”

I did not sleep at all that night. What is wrong with me? What is to become of me? How long would it be until I graduated from Christmas trees to banks and liquor stores? Then drunks on the street in front of bars — then the bars themselves, then restaurants and drug stores, then . . .

Every time I heard a siren in the distance, I pulled the covers over my head; I knew it was just a matter of time before the FBI burst through the door with guns drawn and dragged me out of bed to — God knew what!

The next day was a Saturday, my day off, and I prepared to decorate the tree. I brought from a trunk in the attic the box of colored lights and silver tinsel, glass ornaments and tinted balls and hooks — innumerable hooks that had come loose and covered the bottom of the trunk with rust, dust and other debris.

“You just there sit down and enjoy your Mountain Dew,” I said merrily to Gracie, my wife back then, “while I make this here tree look better — better than, uh, better than BETTER HOMES and GARDENS!”

“O.K.,” she said. “Who picked it out — you or Charlie?”

“Charlie,” I said, suddenly feeling generous because the FBI had not materialized. “Why do you ask?”

“I dunno,” she said, sipping the M.D. and sitting down in our one easy chair. “It’s so sym…sym…full and, uh, nice around the bottom. You always pick out one that’s not ready yet.”

“Enjoy it while you got it,” I told her
That year, 1963, I made over twenty-five thousand dollars, so much I never thought about never being able to not afford anything again.

Before the year was out I bought my own house; then, later, I bought another, then I got divorced and married again, and bought another house, with two garages, and I filled them both.

I had two marvelous kids by then, and a third on the way (she arrived in 1985). I never again took anything I had not paid good money for.

Sirens in the distance no longer frightened me. I no longer feared the FBI — or anyone else. I was a local TV star.


Robert A. Mills
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