GENE PERRET'S WIT STOP

Sene Witsto Shouting PRAISES for Modern-day CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

PEOPLE OFTEN DISAGREE ABOUT THE greatest invention of all time. Fire was important, but that was more of a discovery than an invention. The wheel and the axle were pretty good. Some folks nominate shoelaces, automatic transmissions, the parachute. They were all good. Every year, around Christmastime, though, there is only one candidate for "Greatest Invention of All Time"-parallel-wired Christmas tree lights.Many of you are too young to appreciate this because parallelwired lights are practically universal now. At one time, though, Christmas tree lights were wired in series. Here's the difference. With parallel wiring, if a lightbulb burns out, only that light goes out. With series wiring, if one bulb burns out, the entire string of lights goes dark. This is the rub: You have no way of knowing which bulb burned out.

My dad loved Christmas decorations. On a tree our size, usually about 8 feet tall, 10 lights would be too few; 50 lights would be ideal. So Dad would compromise. He'd put 372 lights on the tree.

We'd never decorate until the night before Christmas. In the poem it said not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. In our house, though, the activity was frantic.

Decorating our Christmas tree was a family project and an art form. The ornaments had to be placed strategically. Not too many big ones together and not too much spacing between the decorations. My job was to stand off some distance and call out the "bare" spotsthose places where the tree lacked sufficient holiday ornamentation.

"There's trouble right over there," I'd say. My big brother would say, "Where?" I'd say, "There." He'd say, "Where there?" I'd shout, "There," as if my voice's volume would help him know where I was indicating. Finally, I'd go over and point to the spot, and he'd fill it in with an ornament.

Mom would supervise the "tinseling" of the tree. Each strand of tinsel, according to Mom, was to be hung individually on the tree so that it would give the appearance of melting ice on the branches. Aesthetically, that made sense, but to a bunch of kids who were eager to get the tedious work over with so we could get on with Christmas celebrating, it was much too painstaking. We'd resort to hanging clumps of tinsel at a time and eventually to just grabbing handfuls of the shiny stuff and throwing it at the tree. Let it fall and drape where it may.

The crowning moment and this was always Dad's duty and privilege was plugging in the lights. We'd all stand across the room as Dad inserted the plug into the wall socket, and we'd watch the tree do nothing. Absolutely nothing.

That meant a bulb was burned out. One of the 372 colored lights was defective. The search for the malfunctioning bulb would begin.

Dad would take a bulb that he knew was good. He'd unscrew one of the tree lights and replace it with the good bulb. If all the lights went on, he'd found the culprit. If nothing happened, he'd go to the next light in the string and repeat the process. Of course, it might be the first bulb Dad tried. It never was, though. It could be in the first 10. It never was. It could be in the first 20. It never was.

We kids would panic. "Daddy, you have to get the tree lights lit. Santa Claus is coming and if he doesn't see our tree, he won't leave us any presents."

Dad would say, "We'll get the tree lights on. It just takes a little time. Where did I leave off?"

We didn't know and neither did Dad. So he'd have to go back to the first bulb and start all over again.

But what a glorious moment it was when my father would tighten a bulb into a socket and all 372 lights illuminated. You wanted to shout "Hallelujah." You wanted to announce to all the world, "I bring you glad tidings." You wanted to deliver peace on Earth to all men of good will.

Come to think of it, isn't that what Christmas is all about? Maybe those series lights weren't such a bad idea after all. AH

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