Back Alley Christmas

A Back Alley Christmas

Okay, so the title lies. This isn’t about Christmas. It’s about Christmas time, specifically those days between December 25th and January First. We, the barely teens and the sub-teens of the neighborhood, would gather together on those cold and dark nights in the dirt-floored alleyway between Cambridge and Poplar Streets. The alley was ours after dark.

In the daytime, the older guys, the teenagers and the young men in their twenties, would use the alley to shot craps or otherwise gambol and gamble. Alley gambling took place off the streets, behind the houses, and away from the eyes of the Philadelphia police. True, once in a while the police would come charging up the alleyway to scatter the craps shooters and then pocket the money that had been left behind by the fleeing players. It was recognized by players and police alike as a kind of informal payoff, for often enough, the police would know of the game and ignore the illegal proceedings. But as I said, the alley belonged to the sub-teens after dark. For most of the winter we would build small fires and roast potatoes by attaching them to a wire coat hanger and placing them in the embers. We rarely pulled out a properly cooked potato, but that wasn’t the point. It was dark. It was cold and we were warm. We played the game of “Chip or Skip”. The rules were simple, if a latecomer wanted to hang around the fire he had to contribute some wood. The wood was the “chip”. If you had no fuel you were banished until you returned with a contribution; that was the “skip”. But at Christmas time, that joyous Yule season, there were discarded Christmas trees to burn and the alley was bedecked with boughs of Scotch pine or white pine or spruce just waiting to be set ablaze by the neighborhood corps of junior pyromaniacs.

It is true that our parents discarded the trees properly by placing them with the weekend trash for pickup, but we would purloin the trees and drag them into the alley for the evening’s bon fires. We husbanded the trees, stashing away a dozen, and usually burning only two or three each night. Tree burnings were ritualistic and involved very specific techniques for tree placement and lighting. Usually the cheap wooden stand would still be attached to the tree enabling it to set upright in the middle of the alleyway away from the backyard fences. If the tree had no stand, an enterprising young carpenter would hustle up a few nails, a hammer, and some wood and bang out a crude but effective tree stand. Once a stand was secured to the base of the tree a back alley shaman schooled by a teen aged elder who had recently graduated to the daytime craps game would stuff newspaper in the lower branches, light the paper and we would watch the leaping lizards of flame crackle up to the topmost branches as the aromas of pine and smoke filled the night air.

I was old enough to have witnessed the great pyres, but still too young to handle one on my own or even to understand the mysteries which lay behind the ceremonial rituals. Youth often goes where angels fear to tread, and I advanced with the speed of the damned. I decided to try a burning on my own. One evening I slipped out from the back of the house to the alleyway and grabbed a tree that I had had my eye on only to discover that it had no base. I was much too unhandy and far too impetuous to bother with trying to make a base. “Easy enough”, I thought, “I’ll just prop it up against this wooden fence”. I gathered the requisite newspapers and stuffed them into the lower branches then reached into my pocket for the matches that I had lifted from the kitchen. It was cold and my fingers were numb, but industry and perseverance bring a sure reward and I finally managed to light the newspaper. I stood back to observe my handiwork as the lower branches began to crackle and burn. The flames licked up the dry tree and the back alley was aglow with light. Soon the crackle of the pine had ceased but the light of the blaze increased in intensity and the conflagration persisted.

I took a very careful and sober look and, “On what did my wondering eyes gaze, but a burnt out tree and a fence all ablaze. I was the culprit all guilty and sick and I ran to my home in haste, double quick.”

I dashed down the alley, on to Cambridge Street and entered my house via the front door, nowhere near the scene of the crime. I was sitting in the parlor when I heard the fire engines and expressed great surprise to learn that someone’s fence was on fire. The fence had to be replaced, but no one was hurt and no one ever found the culprit.

Did I stop burning Christmas trees? Not on your life. I learned to make crude but effective tree stands.