- Episode 4
- A Beetle Arithmetic Lesson
- Our skiers got up late the next morning, catching up on rest after all the energy they spent on the slopes, not only skiing but getting used to the thin, dry air. It was Christmas Eve, and there wasn't much to do since Louise wanted everyone to experience the traditional Polish Christmas vigil dinner her own family prepared. Mary insisted on baking homemade bread for the occasion, though, and she was busy in the kitchen doing just that when Agnes and Mort came down.
- "The twins are real sleepy-heads this morning, but they'll be down in a few minutes," Mort said. "Skiing is tough work at this altitude."
- "It sure is, but you'll get used to it by the time you leave," Peter said with a grin. "How are the trees up there?"
- "Fine, I guess," Mort replied. "What do you mean?"
- Peter worked for the Forest Service and part of his job was to check on the health of trees in the region. He explained that there was a serious problem with pine beetles throughout the area. "They've chewed through almost two million acres."
- "Two million acres? That sounds like a whole lot, Grandpa," Mel said, overhearing the last part of the conversation. "How big is two million acres?"
- "How many acres of trees are there in Colorado, Dad?" Agnes asked. She was thinking that this would be a good time to talk about fractions and to help the twins remember how they estimated an acre during their trip to the pumpkin patch.
- "About 22 million, why?"
- "Mel, Mal. Shall we figure out how bad the damage is? There's a total of 22 million acres of trees in Colorado and the beetles are eating about 2 million acres of them. What's the percent that those hungry critters have eaten so far?"
- Peter took out a piece of paper and a pencil. "Have you learned about fractions yet? Who wants to write down the numbers and help us figure this out?"
- Mel sat down next to Peter. "Twenty two million. How many zeros are there?"
- "Actually, this is easier than it seems. Since both numbers are millions, we can just work with the numbers 2 and 22," Peter said. "When you want to find out a percent of something, you divide the bigger number into the smaller number and multiply by 100. Can you show me how to do that?"
- "We just started learning. Let me try," Mel said, as she wrote the number 2, drew a line and wrote the number 22 underneath.
- "We could work with these numbers, but we could also find the least common denominator, which is 1 and 11," Peter explained. He then proceeded to show Mel and Mal that 2 divided by 22 gives the same answer as 1 divided by 11. "Now we multiply by 100 and we see that those hungry beetles have eaten into 9% of our trees."
- "Wow. Does that mean that in 10 years most of the trees will be gone?" Mal asked, worried.
- "Good thinking, Mal," Peter said. "No one knows for sure how slow or fast the beetles will eat or multiply because there are a lot of other things that are involved."
- "Multiply? I thought we were doing division!" Mel said with a giggle.
- At that, Mary announced that breakfast was ready, so the arithmetic lesson was over for now.
- A Different Holiday Tradition
- "Welcome to our humble abode to celebrate Wigilia (pronounced vee-gee-lee-ah) with us," Louise greeted her husband's family. Mary handed her the Irish soda bread and the dozen apple scones she baked that morning. "Carol and Ted are already here. You adults met each other at our weddings, but let's help the children get acquainted with their cousins."
- After introductions all around, Louise went back into the kitchen to check on the food. The table was set for 16, one more than the number of people, for the Christ Child, according to custom. A small bit of hay under the tablecloth signifies the manger.
- Fred brought out a plate of flat wafers to the living room and gave everyone a piece. Louise explained that the custom is for everyone to share a piece of their wafer with everyone else, while offering good wishes for the coming year. The children were not sure what to do and neither were the adults, so Fred and Louise said they would go first and then everyone else could then join in.
- Louise took a bit of Fred's wafer and ate it. "Fred, I'm enjoying a marvelous life with you here in the mountains. Here's to getting that promotion at work next year."
- Fred took a bit of Louise's wafer and ate it. "Louise, thank you for raising three wonderful children. I hope the book you're working on gets published this coming year."
- "Ok everyone, start with whoever is next to you and work your way around until everyone has toasted everyone else. If you run out of wafer, we've got more," Louise announced.
- The noise level rose considerably as it seemed that 15 people were all talking at once. Mal was standing next to Joey, so he offered the older boy his wafer and said something like "I hope you get good grades in school next year." Joey responded by saying "My grades are ok. I hope you survive skiing at Keystone. We're coming too!"
- When the greetings all around were finished, Louise rang the glass dinner bell. She arranged the place cards so that each child was seated between two adults. After saying a short grace, Louise went to the kitchen to ladle out the creamy mushroom soup while Carol and Agnes brought each bowl to the table. When the soup bowls were cleared, Carol and Agnes helped to bring out dishes piled high with two types of pierogi (dumplings filled with potatoes or sour kraut), barley with stewed prunes, assorted vegetables, fried fish and the loaves of Mary's bread.
- "It's good luck to take a little bit of everything," Louise said, particularly addressing the children (who weren't exactly thrilled with some of the new tastes). "You don't want to have bad luck all next year, do you?"
- "I'll have a taste of all the cakes and cookies," Joey's sister Amy announced, to the noisy agreement of all the cousins.
- "I think that only applies to the main course, not to dessert," her father said, as Louise nodded seriously.
- After the dinner dishes were taken care of, the adults went back to the living room and talked about all sorts of things, from the state of the economy to the sorry state of Colorado's pines. The cousins moved to the family room, where they watched a Christmas video. When the video finished, Peter stood up and suggested that there was plenty of time for the visitors to go back and rest up before Midnight Mass, allowing their hosts to do the same.
- "Good idea, Dad," said Carol. "I've got some things to do to prepare for tomorrow."
- A familiar Christmas Meal and a Different Kind of Christmas Carol
- On the way back, Peter explained that Carol's husband Ted was in danger of losing his job and that he and Mary proposed that, instead of exchanging family Christmas presents, everyone share their favorite stories about the past year after the Christmas dinner at Carol's. They did make one exception, however; he and Mary are treating everyone to a day of skiing with Agnes, Mort and the twins the day after Christmas.
- "Dads are all alike, aren't they?" Mort said to his wife, more of a statement than a question.
- Carol had been busy all week, preparing for the Christmas dinner. When their guests arrived on Christmas Day, one of the two turkeys was roasting in the kitchen oven, the other outdoors in the kettle grill. Mal and Mel wanted to know why they didn't grill outdoors in the winter. Their parents agreed that it was fun watching the snow fall onto the grill and melt instantly, so they promised to try "sometime."
- Soon the long table was filled with the two turkeys, baked sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, gravy, Agnes's "famous" cranberry relish, hot rolls and other dishes. After dinner, cookies, cakes and other sweets awaited everyone in the family room. Ted helped Carol bring in coffee for the adults and milk for the children.
- Carol and Louise prompted their children to thank their grandparents for tomorrow's gift of a day's skiing and laughed approvingly that this would be the first Christmas that didn't produce mounds of wrapping paper that quickly wound up in the recycling bin.
- "We'd like to tell you our story about the spirits of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future," Louise started.
- "This story doesn't have a Mr. Scrooge and there are spirits instead of ghosts," Carol continued.
- Louise and Carol explained that their churches had worked together on several social programs over the years, and they thought it might be interesting to borrow the idea of past, present and future Christmas spirits from Charles Dickens.
- Louise described the spirit of Christmas past: "An employment-assistance program was established when the economy began to suffer. At this time last year, twelve people were signed up. They were men and women, young and old, some looking for entry-level work, others were skilled tradespeople and even an accountant and a lawyer. Some people volunteered to help with letters, resumes and phone calls. Others provided printing or temporary office space for those to use to look for work."
- Carol then described the spirit of Christmas present: "Of the original twelve people looking for work, eight found permanent jobs and the other four are working part time or at temporary jobs until something suitable comes up."
- While the others clapped in approval, Peter noticed Mel trying to figure out in her head the percent of those who found jobs. He handed her a small pencil and an index card that he always carried in his shirt pocket -- you never know when you need to take notes so you don't forget something, he would say. "Remember, least common denominator" he whispered.
- "That's excellent," Mary said. "And what about the spirit of Christmas future?"
- "The program will continue," Ted answered Mary, "because new people have been signing up all year. The economy has been awfully slow in recovering. And the spirit of Christmas future are the new volunteers and even new companies that are joining the program. We'll be able to offer more services, including babysitting while parents go on job interviews. Next Christmas we're hoping to report even greater success than this year."
- "Better than 66.66%?" Mel asked.
- Bobby and Billy quickly moved over to where Mel was sitting on the floor. "How did you know that?" they asked.
- "Simple. Let me show you," Mel said.
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