The Christmas Flounder

Paul Jennewein

“And so it came about that one Christmas Eve in the reign of Franklin the King for Four Terms, the merry glow of kerosene lanterns and – for those who could afford the Ray-O-Vacs – flashlights gleamed over the waters of the sound.
Westward wading, still proceeding, went wise men who knew that dull-witted fishes would be sleeping in the mud at that time of night. Suddenly the sharp splash of steely gigs shattered the starry stillness.
Next day, the unfortunate flounders, lovingly stuffed with native delicacies such as oysters, crabs, collards and grits, graced Christmas tables all over the area. Non-Baptists who knew a reliable bootlegger accompanied the humble dish with a jelly glass of high-octane cheer.”

Some people say, as Jeremy Clarkson would intone regarding the Stig, Paul Jennewein created this story of whole cloth. Don’t believe them.

Paul, Ginnie, and Mary Francis came over every Christmas eve that I remember growing up. In the warmer months, Paul taught me and my sisters how to sail, in the sound (what is now more pompously called the Intracoastal Waterway), and I saw crabs shed their shells in his garage, and fell asleep on his couch, smelling gloriously of salt and sand and seaweed, as he and my dad shot the breeze and had a beer. If my dad had a couple, my mama would take the keys to the T-bird to drive us all home.

Paul every year brought my dad a year’s worth of Amazing Stories or other pulp science fiction magazines, tied up with string, and as we got older we each received that year’s shell desk diary which I loved better than any other Christmas present for most of my life. We had an early casting of his dad’s baby and deer sculpture, which I now know as “Cupid and Gazelle” and must have been worth a fortune but my dad loved art, so a generation of grandchildren grew up draping themselves over it because Paul loved our family. I will never think of opening Christmas presents on the floor in the living room without that golden statue right in the mix.

Wishing a Merry Christmas to all, and at least one splendid, perfect, happy memory of other Christmases, or this one.