“The Ivory Soap Christmas.”

So I got born…1952, June…

…as you can see I’m still shocked by that fact. The back of this photo says exactly this: “Donnie at ?….” Seems my father, the guy lifting me up there, and holding me slightly out of baby puke range, was also kind of shocked by my birth as well.

I’m pegging me there as being between 0 and 6 months, certainly less than the 810 months old that I am now.

After WWII my father, also who was named after me, came back home to Buffalo, NY and was driving a trolly car when on his route he picked up a young redheaded Statler Hilton “cigarette girl” named Mom, er, actually, Helen and after whatever was a respectable amount of time dating in 1950…they got married.

And after some more respectableness had me and then began lifting me up in the air (which is why I hate flying to this day).

Um, so once again that is my father lifting me up, the back of this photo says “Donnie Christmas ?…” a family theme of you know, being close enough. Behind him is the GI tract (2 words with a whole different meaning today) house I was raised in with some photo saying I’m sure “Donnie in snow on ?…”

This photo….

…says “dropping Donnie in the snow age ?…”

My father is laughing, Donnie is not. For the record I have not dropped either of my two kids in the snow, but if I did you can be damn sure on the back of that photo would be their age, the date/time/location and temperature that day noted, and possibly notarized.

So there you go, I got borned, got lifted up and dropped down many, many times, possibly because of legal repercussions no exact dates of the ups and downs were recorded, over time I grew some and then my parents had twin girls and for some reason the photographic record of my life after their birth, is lacking.

I have seen though several dozen large containers of photos of my sisters, and I might say, all the exact dates of how old they are, or the date of the photo, are written very boldly on the backs of said cards, so I’m sure my sisters know exactly how old they were virtually every week of their lives until they moved out of my parents house.

Just saying

“Not sure Donnie knows it’s a fake chimney 12/24/?”

I am possibly 3 years and 6 months and 9 days old in this photo.

Or possibly not.

Whenever I see this photo I think of 2 things, this is where I learned that LARGE flames do not hurt to touch since they are actually cardboard.

A few months later in the summer I learned, much to my surprise, that LARGE flames NOT made out of cardboard actually hurt like hell when you touch them.

1950’s parenting…just saying.

“Donnie not sure about the Christmas tree 12/25/?”

Um, the reason why Donnie is looking like that at the tree is because the previous year a tree much like that…fell on me.

Yep…the Christmas Tree in my parents house fell on top of me as my father was standing partially on the arm of the couch and partially on the Danish Modern Teak Coffee Table trying to reach far enough to stick some angel that lit up on top of the tree.

Any year after that Christmas I was a bit wary of all things tree like dragged into the house and still to this day I never get that close to a Christmas tree, angel or not on top, so as to prevent any Christmas Tree Angel from doinking me in the head once again.

We have ribbon on the top of our Christmas Tree this year, after some Pinot Noir, in the right light, it sort of looks like an angel, but softer.

Much softer.

The Ivory Soap Christmas Story

“Donnie wanted a pony I think for Christmas…”

…but my father, my father he wanted a toy train set, mind you not just ANY train set but THE Gilbert American Flyer 3/16” Scale COMET…

… The #566 Whistling Billboard!!!

I never got the pony.

I did get a toy train.

I could have petted the pony.

I wasn’t allowed to touch MY toy train.

Only my father could play with ”Donnie’s” American Flyer 3/16” Scale Comet with the Whistling Billboard.

Midway through the Ivory Soap Christmas this is what “Donnie’s” Toy Train set looked like…

…it wasn’t going exactly well mainly because of this…

…directions.

Even though I couldn’t read then I learned very, very young that “directions,” are a problem, and mostly ignored.

This Christmas though was “our turn” to host the family Christmas dinner, so we had a full house of Aunts and Uncles and Cousins, one of which was a nun.

Sister Mary Something-or-other was my mother’s cousin, I think, in our family there were a bunch or Uncles, who weren’t, Aunt’s who couldn’t have been, but somehow were.

My favorite Aunt & Uncle (they basically raised me later in life) were actually blood, REAL relatives, Jim (our son is named after him) and Irma (our daughter is not because Ashley just sort of sounded better and was up close to the front in the baby name book).

We are all sitting around the dinner table, almost all, my father is still “playing” with “Donnie’s” toy train…

…when my Cousin, Sister Mary Something-or-other, sitting at the head of the table way far away from me says”

Sister Mary Something-or-other ( AKA SMSOO) “So Donnie do you like your toy train…”

Feeling all important like since an adult actually talked to me I responded back in my best kid-to-adult-who-happened-to-be-a-nun voice: “I wanted a pony.”

SMSOO: “But Donnie it looks like such a nice fancy toy train, do you know what kind of train is it.”

Great, can’t even get a nun to back me on the pony thing, “Yes,” I said in my pony-pissed voice.

SMSOO: “Well what kind is it?”

So in my loudest kid-to-adult-who-is-a-nun voice I answered her exactly like this: “Daddy calls it The Goddamn Train.”

Which in fact is exactly what he was calling it all that Christmas morning while trying to set it up.

It was an absolute moment of kid triumph, I had correctly answered a question asked of me by an adult and in doing so the entire table was so proud of me that every one of the adults at the table stopped eating, some mid-bite, to stare at my genius while also looking at my Cousin Sister Mary Something-Or-Other who also was so proud of me she just looked at me with mouth wide open in admiration.

“And Daddy also says it has a Son-Of-A-Bitch sign that whistles.”

“DON…Donald Barone Senior!!! Come here please.”

Apparently, while quoting my father accurately it turned out that my toy train set wasn’t called what I thought it was called and what I had heard my father repeatedly call it through-out the morning as he struggled to get it to work.

12/25/? became the 1st of many times that I got my mouth washed out with soap, Ivory Soap, as I growed up and “used bad words.”

To this day I still have the “Blank” Toy Train, it’s moved with me and my family back and forth across this country several times but has remained in the same box that my father stored it in and wrote on way back on 12/25/? “Donnie’s Train,” along with a now long lost 60 some year old note that said, simply: “Sorry about the horse.”

It was a pony, pops, gawd.

I also learned another thing that 12/25/? and it was this: As I stood on top of the toilet so it was easier for my mother to put the bar of Ivory Soap in my mouth, the bathroom door opened, my father walked in, looked at me, looked at my mother, and then took from his pocket a bar of Ivory Soap…and stuck it in his own mouth…

…we were buds.

db

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…in “Hi Hat Finish…”

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