My first Christmas was as a three-month-old infant while my father was serving on a Navy destroyer during World War II somewhere in the Atlantic. But my earliest Christmas memories were of living and celebrating on top of my dad's thriving tavern-night club in downtown Annapolis where we lived from 1946 to 1954. Wally's Hotel was located where the third block of West Street met Larkin Street (wrongfully renamed City Gate Lane).
After receiving $100 in mustering-out pay at the end of WWII, my father needed a job. Without a high school degree, his brother asked him to manage Wally's in Annapolis. We lived on the second floor where rental rooms still operated, but the room rentals soon stopped.
Our Christmases were always memorable as there were eventually five siblings, and my mother's strict Polish Catholic upbringing and my Jewish dad's gregariousness ensured our celebrations were rather extravagant. They were filled with colorful characters who frequented his business, with many of them in the military or recent veterans. Musicians from the Naval Academy band joined other bands on weekends and we could hear the music. There also was a jukebox close to the dance floor.
My mother wanted everything to be perfect at Christmas, neglected walls painted and our home glowing. The food she prepared and our tree and decorations needed to achieve perfection. Christmas Mass at St. Mary's was always special. The best treat for me was the Lionel train set we had, and an elaborate setup made for the train on a big sheet of plywood. At one stop, the milk car could deliver miniature little metal containers of milk. Little white pills placed in the locomotive's chimney emitted smoke.
My mom also made Polish chruscikis, sometimes called Polish bows. These delectables were covered in powdered sugar and were a work of love as they were made from scratch. My mom would hide them until Christmas to prevent early consumption. I got caught once with the white powdery sugar evidence on my shirt. And then there was the kielbasa from Ostrowski's on Bank Street in Baltimore where my mom grew up.
Larkin Street, like many areas of downtown Annapolis, was inhabited by African Americans for more than a century. The kids who lived there were my first friends and playmates. George Samaras, who lived on top of a tavern across Larkin Street, was my first white friend. George became a prominent Annapolis doctor, and his parents and Yaya were born in Greece.
The Larkin Street wooden homes seemed to date back to emancipated slave times and were without indoor plumbing or HVAC as kerosene heaters provided heat. All the Larkin Street residents were displaced in the early 1970s as urban renewal destroyed their homes and much of the old 4th Ward wiping out the black enclave I knew. The residents were dispersed to public housing or further away. City Gate Lane and its brick townhouses replaced my earliest friends' homes.
This Black displacement happened in other Annapolis areas in downtown Annapolis and later in Eastport through gentrification. My dad represented the 4th Ward on the City Council later, from 1977 to 1985.
The area where I lived was as racially and religiously diverse as anywhere in the region. Everyone seemed to get along -- African Americans, Greek and Italian immigrants, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, and seemingly most Whites.
Yes, Annapolis was a traditional southern town, and our county and state had enslaved tens of thousands of Africans for the growing of tobacco and as house slaves. Segregation dominated but St. Mary's schools were integrated. Growing up with Black neighbors and friends and going to school and playing sports with Blacks at St. Mary's made me somewhat oblivious to the rampant racism that existed until I was a teenager.
I also experienced anti-Semitism as late as 1983 when I was a state Senator. When I ran for House of Delegates in 1978, I was advised by a businessman to be sure to let people know I was Catholic as voters had elected one Jew from Annapolis and would not elect another. I won handily.
My father's outgoing nature and treating everyone charitably made him a terrible businessman. There was a large cache of jewelry, rings, watches and the like in a desk drawer where we lived. They were all collateral given by my dad's patrons who, producing sob stories, gained cash loans that were never repaid. But in 1994, the year my dad passed away, I was in his townhouse when a gentleman came over, thanked him for a loan made 40 years ago and sat with my sick dad reminiscing. He paid him $60. I asked my dad who he was, and my dad replied: "I don't know."
I had a remarkably diverse and rich childhood and my hearing the gospel singers and musicians at Asbury United Methodist Church next to where I lived hooked me on what was to be a life-long infatuation with soul music. I booked all Black or integrated soul bands going back to 1962 and still do.
Christmas memories are triggered by this special season and holy day holiday. With my mom and dad long gone and the July death of my youngest brother, the past reminiscences can bring on a certain melancholy, even sadness. But Christmas Day dislodges my blues with 20 relatives, including eight kiddies, feasting and celebrating together.
This year with the horrible fracturing and polarization of our society and democracy, unthinkable school murders, rising racism, the ascendancy of fascists, white supremacists and nationalistic autocrats, I am struggling to cope. Other than when WWII was raging with Adolf Hitler exterminating 6 million Jews, there was no worse time in my lifetime.
So, at Christmas, we step up our giving to feed the hungry with generous donations to the World Food Program. We also support the heroic work of Doctors Without Borders and, locally, Anne Arundel Food Bank.
Wouldn't it be much more rewarding and satisfying to give charitably, to escape malls as well as online shopping binges, running up credit card debt? Yes, some folks can do both, but the commercialization of Christmas taints this celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.
My fervent hope for Christmas and the New Year is that all of us can open our hearts and minds to understand one another and end the polarization that exists. In our society, friends and family members have become estranged over political schisms.
We need to clothe ourselves with the true spirit of Christmas that is being buried in the extravagance of acquisitive materialism. We need to exude charity, love and respect not just for family but for all.
Let us follow the 800-year-old prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals: "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy."
In this way we can make America, which is already great, even greater.