In November 1963 my father’s job as a salesman for Eastern Stainless Steel relocated our family from Baltimore, Maryland where we were all born and raised, to New York.
My dad was now working in NYC, but he had neither the income or the desire to have us live there. He discovered a charming little village on the top of Long Island called Northport.
I was in second grade at Immaculate Heart of Mary in Baltimore at the time. I had a huge crush on my teacher. I had friends in school, including a cousin. We were leaving both sets of grandparents behind as well as many other cousins with whom we were very close.
My older sister Cyn was placed in fourth grade at St. Phillip Neri School. There was no room in second grade for me there, so I was enrolled at Ocean Ave. public school. You may recall that rather than attending I spent the first two days hiding out in a neighbor’s chicken coop.
It was only weeks later that, finally attending Ocean Ave., after walking home I saw my dad in the dining room by the hi-fi set. He was listening to the radio. “President Kennedy has been shot,” he said.
I did think back to earlier that afternoon at school when the principal walked into our classroom to say something to our teacher Mrs. Bernstein. She didn’t tell us what he had relayed but she did look upset.
Of course, the whole country was in shock on November 22, 1963. Our family headed back to Baltimore that next week for Thanksgiving. By that time Lee Harvey Oswald had been killed, and President Kennedy’s funeral had taken place. My grandmother had Catholic prayer cards which she gave us. It was an unsettling time for everyone, but it seemed to me, as a second grader, more unsettling by also living in a new town and attending a new school.
When Christmas came around less than a month later, there was a live surprise for us waiting under the tree. It was a black lab/German shepherd mix puppy who jumped out of the box and immediately peed on the braided rug in the living room. My dad wanted to name him Blue. Cynthia claims that she wanted him to be called Christoper (she said recently that it might have been because she had a crush on an older brother of a family we had just befriended), so he officially became Christoper Blue.
We lived in a row home in Baltimore with a tiny backyard so having a dog was not practical there. Here in Northport, we had a big back yard. As it was a small town it seemed a perfect place for a dog, and I am sure that he was purchased by my father to assuage the guilt that he felt uprooting us from our Baltimore.
Both the town of Northport and Christopher Blue turned out to be some of my most treasured memories. There were no leash laws back then. Christopher Blue roamed the town. He would walk sometimes down to St. Phillip (which I got to attend in February of that school year when another second-grade student left) to visit us. In the summers, he would sometimes accompany us to the nearby beach and, because he loved the water, my dad would have him run behind the car on the way home to dry off. I came to love Northport and my life there with my family, new friends and our loveable big black dog was idyllic.
As fate would have it, our time there turned out to be short-lived as my dad’s job took us to Columbus in March 1968. This was a rougher transition for me. I was in sixth grade. The students at Our Lady of Victory made fun of my New York/Baltimore combined accent and my lack of athletic ability in traditional sports. But Christopher Blue was with us and although we didn’t have a beach here in Columbus, we used to take him down to the river and watch him battle the current as he retrieved tennis balls in the water.
Christopher Blue lived exactly ten years, dying close to his November birthday. He remains for me my most precious Christmas present, and my siblings and I talk about him frequently.
Although I never surprised my children with a canine Christmas, we did have Golden Retrievers when they were growing up. A few years ago, my son Braden surprised my grandchildren Charlie, Thomas and Olivia with their own Golden on Christmas day. He only has one name, Benny, but except for the color, he reminds me of my childhood dog.
May your Christmas be one of family, friends and faith and may 2026 bring blessings to you all.
Jim Silcott