A Christmas Chicken | Eastern North Carolina Now

A Christmas Chicken

When you get old, memories are important.

I was four years old in nineteen thirty-nine and the depression was winding down, but things were still difficult for a lot of people.  My family was no exception and if it was not a necessity, we did not buy it.

The Sears Roebuck Catalogue was our Amazon.  It was our style guide and wish-book.  I would spend a lot of time looking at toys and wishing.  In the toy section there was a tin hen that you could wind up and it would lay eggs.  My little four-year-old brain thought that was something that I wished I could have.  I even carried around the page from the catalogue so I could look at it.

My Grandmother’s best friend was always optimistic and full of fun.  She thought that it would be fun to send an order to “Sears and Rareback” in my name.  We sat down together, and she wrote a letter.  “To Sears and Rareback:  This little boy does not have any money, but he is in love with your tin chicken on page…of your catalogue.  If you could send this to Buzz Cayton in Blounts Creek NC it would really make his Christmas.”

She then addressed the envelope to “Sears and Rareback”, somewhere in Chicago, IL.  I was to give it to our rural route mail carrier, Ralph Jones, when he came back by the next day.  I watched for him and ran out when he stopped at our mailbox to wave him down and tell him that Mae-Mae had helped write a letter to Sears and I wanted him to mail it.

Ralph Jones had a great sense of humor.  He took the letter and told me he would put it in the mail.

I do not know if the local post office put a stamp on it or if they decided just for fun to put it in the mail.  Apparently other mail workers thought it was funny to see a letter to “Sears and Rareback” and they forwarded it on down the line.  In about two weeks, the package with the chicken showed up at the Blounts Creek Post Office.  Being a small neighborhood and because Ralph knew our family, he knew where to deliver it.

To the surprise of Mae-Mae and my whole family, I had received my Christmas chicken. For my family, it was a miracle.  For me, it was a Happy Christmas.