Garrison Forest Veterans Cemetery

As the holiday season approaches, I always reflect on the fact that I found Christmas a sad time of the year. Part of the reason was that I found over secularized.  My mother asked Dr. Brown, our pediatrician about it. He told her, " He will probably outgrow it".  Dr. Brown left his pediatric practice and turned his career clock back and went back to do psychiatric residency. The real reason I felt the way that I did was that we had so much, and so many had so little. When I got old enough to spend a few hours on Saturday  doing whatever I could at the McMechen Street Nicholson Brothers store & plant, every Christmas when the store was about to close my father gave me and Bobby Owens, a delivery driver at Nicholson Brothers a list of addresses and bags of toys and foods. My dad knew enough about the neighborhood to know who needed those things. When we finally closed up shop, Bobby and I would play Santa Claus to some of the neighborhood  residents. Provident Hospital was still there then and the Avenue was a vital economic hub that World Book Encyclopedia called a "Black Fifth Avenue"
By the time I got home, I felt a tinge of guilt that the houses that Bobby & I visited were not exactly like my house.  Giant tree. A hundred lights outside. Many presents.  U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Roland Nicholson, Jr. was very young when he spent a frigid Christmas near Bastogne, during the Battle of the Bulge.  He spoke about processing German soldiers as prisoners of war. Some as young as 15. I for one am glad he made it back from that Christmas, but I still sad that the world is not a better place for all Men, Women & Children

ROLAND NICHOLSON SR

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