I love you Dad

I'm planning on getting my Christmas tree this evening - the whole thing went so swimmingly last year that I've had to consider whether I was just lucky or if the whole process isn't nearly as complicated and confounding as my upbringing led me to believe. My poor dad. One Christmas season in Castleton I recall riding shotgun as my father drove me, Josh, and Job out to Orwell in the Ford Tempo. Our mission - find our tannenbaum out "in the forest somewhere". The first offering we brought back home made it inside but didn't remain long enough to melt the snow on its boughs. "Barry, I believe what you've got there is a bush" was my grandma's greeting. While all agreed that our organism certainly had the general shape of a Christmas tree it was, sadly, not in fact a tree. Back to Orwell. With Sunlight fading we happened upon the loveliest balsam one might ever hope to see. It was almost Christmas itself and it was huge! Probably twelve feet tall with branches extended way out wide like a hoop skirt. My time for this tale is short as I write this at the library and I'll have to leave out much of the case-study material for another telling; but one moment of valor must be sketched out for you. Like I said, this tree was massive and it is more accurate to say that, in preparing to take the thing home, we put the Tempo under it. As we draped it over the car, the only window that we could see out of was the windshield and that view was certainly impaired as well. But we headed for home with our prize. All was well until we started across the windswept plains of 22A in Benson. I'm not sure where we lost the old tree but the "when" was not in doubt as the car stood up and the light shone in from all around. Now the snow banks had all but taken away any shoulder that the road afforded and dad got off the road only a bit. We all hopped out thankful that traffic was light. We hefted and hoisted the tree back on the Ford and hurriedly began tieing her back down. Maybe it was the bitter cold turning our hands to ice or the eighteen-wheelers beginning to come in either direction; but we lost our heads a bit. In our haste we had successfully tied the tree snug to the car as well as all the doors snug to their frame. Yes - with the windows down and the doors shut we had run the ropes through the inside of the car effectively locking ourselves out. Josh instinctively began to untie the ropes to reverse our error when my dad stayed his hand. "I think we can climb through the windows boys" were the words I remember. What came next one could never forget - in fact I'm sure there are probably a few truck drivers telling the same holiday tale somewhere right now. My dad was a gamer that day and even the russian judge, I'm sure, would have awarded him a high score as he shoehorned himself into the Ford and my everlasting admiration.