The smoky odor seeped through the floorboard of Dad’s old truck. I covered my nose and took a deep breath, then rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Deliberately, I kept my gaze through the side window, away from Dad’s view as I chewed.

The war news that came over Grandpaw’s Zenith the night before had been upsetting to my grandfather, who lived with my family, but sitting beside my powerful dad on a Christmas mission made me feel safe. I glanced at the brown paper bag on the seat between us, knowing one of Momma’s famous fruit cakes, wrapped in a soft cotton cloth soaked with whisky, was missing a corner I’d bitten off a few minutes earlier while waiting for Dad to come to the truck.

The cold misty rain came faster than the windshield wiper could wipe. With his handkerchief, Dad cleaned the breath fog from the glass in front of him. I huddled against the seat, warm in my wool Mackinaw and with my leather aviator’s cap securely snapped under my chin.

Our mission that morning, a few days before Christmas in 1942, was to deliver Momma’s cakes; one for Aunt Sook, and the other for Aunt Inez, who would give us one of her equally famous yellow-layer cakes, dressed heavily with egg-white icing, coconut and red cherries.

I shoved my hands in my jacket pockets. A puff of blue smoke billowed in front of Dad, just as he placed his cigar-holding hand atop the steering wheel. He was a powerful man in my way of thinking, and I was happy to be riding beside him — “riding shotgun” was the way he put it. Through the side window, in every direction, were expanses of empty fields, brown and wet, windswept and cold.

“But this is Christmas,” I told myself, “it’s supposed to be this way.”

School would be out for almost three weeks, and the biggest events through the holidays would take place in front of a warm fireplace, where I’d sit cross-legged on the floor, watching the flames and listening to the grownups talk about crops just harvested, about the cold and always about the war. My favorite stories were about my seven soldier cousins and two uncles, all of them fighting in places with strange-sounding names.

As the old truck hummed along the gravel road, I smiled and recalled the advice Momma had given me before we left home: “Wear your Mackinaw. The wind’s coming from the North and it’s going to sleet.”

Sleet was a magic word I listened for every winter, because we believed it had to sleet before it would snow. Excitement had set in when Momma said “sleet” that morning, making me believe snow might come.

The brakes squeaked when Dad stopped the truck in front of Harper’s Grocery at the crossroads at Morrison’s Station. Harper’s Grocery was the most lovable country store along the 10-mile stretch from town all the way down the gravel road to the village of Gold Dust, our final destination that morning. Harper’s was owned by Dad’s sister, Aunt Sook, to whom Momma gave a fruit cake — a small “thank you,” Momma said, “for extending credit all year till the crops came in and we had a little money.”

Dad cut off the switch, and the truck jerked when the engine died. I reached into the brown bag and took out the cake on top, making sure Aunt Sook got the one with all four corners because Momma and Aunt Sook visited often at her store and would probably talk about the cake later.

As I stepped from the truck, I brought the wrapped cake to my nose, and it was ready, ripe with flavor and the aroma of whisky. My mother’s philosophy about strong drink was simply put: “There’s too much dignity and pride in our family to tolerate the idiocy created by indulgence in strong drink —except, of course, in fruit cakes I make for Christmas.”

“Besides,” she would end her statement, “we’re Baptist.”

Inside the warm store, Dad took out his wallet and paid our year-long grocery bill, then I handed Aunt Sook the wrapped cake. She removed the cloth right there at the counter and, in one deep breath, took in the aroma. She smiled and hugged me.

Sleet bounced off the windshield before the wiper could catch it. Dad looked at me with a smile, his blue eyes bright. I figured he, too, was thinking about snow.

Again, when he turned the engine off, the truck lurched forward. I grabbed the brown paper bag, hopped out of the truck, and together we ran to Uncle Ray’s and Aunt Inez’s long front porch. The front door opened, and a woman I knew as Rebecca smiled and said good morning.

The big foyer was as cold as the outside. We crossed the dark wood floor to the door to the left, straight into a cold living room, then into another room as cold as the others — the dining room. On the far side of the dining room, Rebecca opened the door into the kitchen, where a fire was roaring in the fireplace.

I pulled off my aviator’s cap and stuffed it in my pocket. Aunt Inez smiled and told Dad that Uncle Ray was tending the animals at the barn and would be coming in soon. I handed her the paper bag.

“I know what this is,” she said, smiling, “and I’m gonna put it in the dining room with the others.”

The door onto the back porch opened, and Uncle Ray walked in, wearing his usual khaki shirt and pants, and socks with no shoes.

“Billy, what are you doin’ out on a day like this?” he asked me.

“Trading Christmas cakes, I guess,” I said softly while he scuffed my hair, left matted by my aviator’s cap.

He pulled a straight chair to the fireplace and began putting on his shoes while talking to Dad, mostly a chit-chat about the weather and the possibility of snow. A young man entered from the porch. His name, I remembered, was “Sonny,” and he was Rebecca’s younger brother; they took care of the house, the livestock and the barn.

Aunt Inez and Rebecca cooked breakfast, and for almost two hours we sat around the kitchen table, ate and I listened while the two brothers talked. A few minutes later, Sonny brought in an armload of wood for the fireplace. It was time for Dad and me to go.

In the dining room, Aunt Inez handed me a box.

“Now be careful, and don’t tilt it or drop it. It’s your momma’s Christmas cake,” she said. My eyes were turned up to her kind face. “Be sure to tell her I’ve tasted a corner from her cake, and this year is the best ever.” Her smile lingered as she chuckled and pinched my cheek.

It didn’t snow again, making Christmas of 1942 the same as all of the other Christmases I’d known. But in the midst of a great war raging around the world, my family was changing, and as Grandfather often reminded us during those reckless and dangerous years, we were ordinary people living in extraordinary times.

And we traded Christmas cakes.

 

— Bill Hunt is an Athens author and occasional contributor to The News Courier.