H
ere is my idea of a Christmas miracle.
In January my pal Nick Colombo, who was a year ahead of me in school, will turn sixty-seven. I’ve been taking pictures of Nick since nineteen-sixty-seven, when he was nineteen years old. He’s a good-looking guy, cooperative in front of the camera. Mostly I tell him, “Keep on doing what you’re doing,” but if I give him direction, Nick will pretty much do what I say. “Stand like this.” “Lower your chin.” “Blow a smoke ring.” “Hold that pose. Hold it hold it hold it, we’re almost there, Nick, hold it. Okay, thank you, sir, I think I got my shot.”
Couple days ago, on a dim December day here in Fjord, Wisconsin, with a few snowflakes in the air, Nick stopped by my house. Celeste and I were just going out the door, running late to pay a Christmas visit to some friends on a farm, so we told Nick we couldn’t invite him in. He had taken his Harley-Davidson out for a few miles’ ride in the country, he said, to warm the engine before garaging the bike for winter. He shelters it in an ancient garage at his home a few blocks from ours, and I asked if he wanted help pulling the Harley backwards across the soft sand of the garage floor, but he said no, he would run it straight in, this time, and deal in the spring with getting it back out again.
The day was dark and dirty but the bike was bright and clean, and Nick was wearing headgear I hadn’t seen before, a soft-shell hat with upturned bill, full ear-lappers fastened below his chin, and lush bunny fur framing his face. He looked like Elmer Fudd, Celeste said, and she meant it in a nice way. (Elmer’s hat, you know, didn’t have the bunny fur until pretty late in the cartoon series.) I decided I wanted to take the time for a picture. “Two minutes!” I said.
I grabbed my camera, went out into the cold, and fired off nine shots. From first click to last, it took one minute and fifty-nine seconds—a digital camera keeps track of such things. And now here’s the miracle: four of the nine photos are what I would call “frameable”!
S
mall miracles are my favorite kind. But if this story isn’t Christmassy enough for you and you’d like to discuss the size and surprise of various events reported in the second chapter of Luke, come over and see us sometime. Please call first. If you have a bunny fur hat, why don’t you bring it along.
