Catch this Lionel train of thought for the holidays

I was to be married the day after Christmas and my Dad announced that he’d skip the wedding. Not because he was losing his only daughter, but because of his feelings for my husband to be. He just couldn’t stand him.

“He’s a soldier!” my father said, as if describing a disease that needed to be eradicated. “You know they’re only after one thing!” I was none too sure what that one thing was, but this didn’t seem like the best time to ask. It was a much more innocent age.

My father had very fixed views about the Armed Forces. He held members of the Air Force in minimum high regard. He didn’t like the Navy. But he just plain hated the Army.

Dad had been a Marine for a brief time. He ran away from home at 14, inspired by the hand-drawn poster in the post office that said, “You’re not GOOD enough to be a Marine.” He decided that was exactly the life for him. Like many other new recruits of that time, he simply wrote the number 18 on a scrap of paper and tucked it in his shoe. Now, he could say he was “over 18.” Few questions were asked in that World War I era and he was a big guy.

He was proud to have gotten through boot camp before his parents found him and took him home, but in his heart, he was a Marine for life.

So he certainly wouldn’t come to the wedding, he said, and he retreated to the attic, which was his go-to place in times of stress. There he kept his beautiful layout of Lionel O Gauge trains. Three engines and a set of 12 genuine plastic townspeople in realistic positions. The trains ran on different tracks at different levels. One train even ran through the brick chimney.

He’d started the train set as a Christmas gift for my brother when he was 6 and very ill. Mike got well and the trains moved to the attic and became a special refuge for our Dad. Over the years, my father created a miniature panorama of all the places he’d lived in exact detail. There was a lighted Christmas Tree in Spokane, the Scotts Bluff Nebraska Soldiers Home he helped to build. The story of his life was there. In the Warland, Montana section, there was a woman in long skirts running desperately to the outhouse.

Dad was very sentimental. Occasionally, he’d allow someone he liked to run the train. Not often. He didn’t like that many people.

My husband and I were married the day after Christmas, which meant my Mother had to cook the rehearsal dinner, do all of the regular Christmas preparations, and then be fresh and sparkling as the bride’s mother the next day. Somehow, she didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as you’d think, and she definitely didn’t have much time for trying to pry my father out of the attic.

It all went off without mishap except that my 11-year-old brother got into the sparkling fountain at the reception and drank several glasses of hard punch. He thought it was very, very good.

At the last minute, my Dad did come to the wedding, but he wouldn’t walk me down the aisle and he didn’t speak to my husband for two years. But on another Christmas, when the new father climbed the stairs with our baby daughter in his arms, he was allowed to peek into the train room.

My father didn’t allow his son-in-law to run a train until the older kids were in middle school. By then there had been a wonderful metamorphosis. My stern Dad had become “Grandpappy,” holding the little ones on his lap and allowing them to blow the train whistle.

Times change. Those little ones are grandparents now. Those Christmas traditions that seemed etched in stone drifted away as loved ones move around the world, or out of it. We have to create a holiday that fits who we are now. I like to look for a lot of little celebrations instead of one big one.

But you know, the kids have been asking what I would like for Christmas, and I was thinking — now don’t say anything to anybody — but I was thinking maybe a train. Just a little one. And we could all take turns running it. Here. You go first, but be careful, it’s been through a lot. Me too.

Where to find Dorothy in December

• 11 a.m. Dec. 14: Zoom Christmas Card from Gina (the daughter) and Dorothy Wilhelm. Puppets, songs and fun. Questions and registration link at Dorothy@itsnevertoolate.com
• Swimming upstream radio show: Christmas celebrations all of December. www.https://SwimmingUpstreamRadioShow.com or anywhere you get podcasts.
• Contact Dorothy Wilhelm at Dorothy@itsnevertoolate.com