By Jerry Robinson
It was my first Christmas as publisher of the White Center News and I had this great idea for decorating the business district. I would go from store to store in downtown along 16th SW and get the merchants to help get the town in a holiday mood. I would place Christmas trees along the sidewalk curbs on both sides of the street from Roxbury to SW 100th.
It would be a silver painted tree in a hole in the curb with a spotlight shining on it from above the store's doorway. All for the cost of only $15. What a deal!
So I went door to door pitching my plan to merchants, most of whom I barely knew. Before I was through pitching the plan I figured I should think the glorious idea through. I had to get a hole in the curb, I had to buy a bunch of spotlights, buy a bunch of trees and somehow paint them.
What an idiot. I sold the goofy idea to about forty merchants. I checked my list: Trees, lights, paint and...Oh!, holes in the curb. Darn..it. Not all trees have the same trunk size. How big a hole can I make. How can I make the hole? It has to be the right size. I called county commissioner Ed Munro.
He somehow got the holes drilled and gave each hole a brass lid screwed into a brass rustproof liner. What a great guy. I found plenty of perfect trees on a tree lot on 15th SW across from Oren's Food Mart.
I was ready to pick up the spotlights at Chubby and Tubby when it dawned on me. How will I power them? I was already way over budget and many merchants had no place to put up a spotlight anyway so I dropped that part of the plan.
The trees had to be painted. Omigawd! I rented a spray gun and did the job myself, in my garage at home in Beverly Park. My kids were forced into manual labor and we did all the painting in one night. Everything in the garage, including my sons, the lawnmower, wheelbarrow, ladders, rakes and tools were all silvery.
The next day their Mother got most of the paint off them before they left for Beverly Park Elementary. I gave them each a dime for helping.
I recruited them the next few days to help stick the trees in the holes in the curbs. We had to shave the trunks on some to make them fit.
