Christmas meant a great deal to my mother. Although we never had any money, there was always a real tree loaded with ornaments, lots of tinsel and colored lights (putting on the lights was Dad's job.) Mom sprayed fake snow on the windows and sent out a huge number of Christmas cards. All those childhood Christmas memories have blended together over the years. But one special Christmas morning memory is still vivid in my mind. My middle brother, Billy, must have been eight or nine that year and he had one dollar to buy Christmas gifts for the whole family. Naturally, he went to Woolworth, the kind of store that really doesn't exist anymore. I forget what he gave my other brothers, Ricky and Jimmy, but my mother received a tiny black frying pan. Since Dad loved boats, Billy had given him a big postcard showing a boat in the Gulf of Mexico. And he had bought me a small plastic change purse. Its transparent sides were shot through with tiny gold lines and it was filled with pale yellow tissue paper. I was stunned. I knew it had cost 39 cents, a huge part of my little brother's dollar. "It's absolutely beautiful, Bill." I could hardly speak. "And I think that's a little yellow scarf inside," he said excitedly. I lightly rubbed my fingers over the tiny purse. "Yes, Billy, I think it is."
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