I heard part of this story and witnessed the other part of it. The year was 1974.
Down on Highway 29 headed south out of Andalusia, Alabama towards Florala and the Florida line, a single, tall evergreen tree leaned achingly toward the road. It had been bent over a little to the east by the winds of a hurricane years earlier – probably Camille.
The old man who lived in the house behind it decided to string up a few lights that Christmas. His plan included aluminum pie plates as well. His wife was gone, either dead or just unexplained gone. She left him with quite a collection of shiny plates.
The light stringing and plate hanging was a struggle seen by many passersby. His ambitious project started with a ladder; then a longer ladder; then no ladder, as he climbed up in the tree and distributed the bulbs and plates around the limbs. His decoration came together foot by foot. It took him about a week of solid work before he finished it. It was impressive in a sadly rural way.
He invited several people down and plugged it in and everyone took a shot of burbon and tried to sing a tune that one observer said resembled a Christmas hymn from the Baptist church. Many of those who attended were not sure. The tree was lit and christened and holiday travelers marveled at the lone tree so colorful in the cold dark of an Alabama winter – until a rainy night about a week before Christmas.
A carload of teenagers on a beer run to the state line drove past the tree. On the way back, they stopped and traded shots at the tree with a 16-gauge. The old man’s decoration was wounded as badly as his spirits. He had a week to fix it. He pretty much had to start from scratch with the wired frayed in the buckshot. He finished on Christmas Eve.
I had heard so much about this thing that I wanted to see it for myself, so a few of us loaded into my 1962 Ford Galaxie 500 and headed down 29. In the distance just outside of town, past the drive-in, the tree glowed in multicolored splendor against the dying day. We slowed down to get a better look. That’s when we saw him.
The old man sat in a metal yard chair at the base of the tree. He wore denim overalls, a plaid coat and a wilted, red Massey Ferguson gimme cap with a cotton ball glued to the top to give him an angry Santa visage. In his arms nestled a 12-gauge semi-automatic. He rose as we slowed and he eased back down as we accelerated and drove past. To my knowledge, no one opened fire on his tree anymore. The next year, his tree was bare and his house empty. I have often wondered what happened to him.
Last Christmas, I drove down Highway 29 to see if I could find the place, but the house was gone. Only part of a chimney jutted from the garbage bushes. The tree was gone too. Not even a stump remained.
I pulled over and got out and stood beside the windy road, gazing across the scrubby hill. As I turned to leave, a sound crunched under my foot – a weathered, deteriorated spent 12-guage shell. I laughed to myself. Perhaps he had gotten off a few shots after all.
Opening to car door to leave, the wind howled around the corners like a badly sung Christmas song from a Baptist hymnal.