Editorís note:In memory of longtime reporter Rose Post, who died this year, the Salisbury Post is reprinting some of her columns. This story first appeared in the Post on Dec. 25, 2002.
Young people know all about falling in love.
But old people know what love is.
And Albert Monroe admits heís old. And, to tell the truth, brags about it a little, too, because he might as well.
ěIíll be 93 the first of March,î he says, and he thinks about his wife, Mary Henley, who died in May of 2000, pretty much all the time. How could he do otherwise, he asks, ěafter 63 years of a wonderful marriage?î
So when Christmas comes, he says, ěI like to revive some of the things she did,î and one of the things she did was to pull out the red wooden shoes he brought her when he got home from World War II.
He bought them in December of 1944 in Antwerp, Belgium, ěfrom a street vendor for $5,î he says,îand I must have overpaid him because he nearly shook my arm off. The city was being bombed at the time I made the purchase.î
He was Lt. Albert Monroe then, commanding officer of the Anthony Wayne, a ship the United States leased from an American corporation to haul cargo.
The cargo he was hauling on that trip was $15 million in currency. It was bound for the Bank of Belgium for international credit, and France sent an armored train from Paris to pick it up. It was all in $1,000 bills and in steel casks, ěand it weighed almost a ton.î
When they were in port, he says, ěwe always went downtown to look around, but we were careful to get out of downtown Antwerp before 4 oíclock because the Germans were very methodical and started bombing at 4 oíclock.î
It was a beautiful city, and the shops were operating the best they could under wartime conditions, and people ó children and women and men ó actually wore these wooden shoes. I talked to people wearing them the best I could.î
That wasnít easy. They spoke French and he spoke English.
But he learned some interesting things.
ěIf the shoes hurt,î he says, ěthey said they just did a little expert woodworking with a pen knife or a piece of sandpaper.î
The shoes went with him from Europe to the Philippines and finally came home to Mary Henley.
ěAnd many times at Christmas,î he says, ěshe actually wore them because they were her size ó and I never did have to wonder where she was because they made so much clatter.î
But most of the time they stayed in the attic until they brought them out at Christmas and put them on the coffee table or the mantle.
ěThey always did attract a lot of attention,î he says. ěEverybody oohs and aahs.î
So, of course, thinking about Mary Henley, he brought them out again this year but added something new.
ěThis is the first Christmas theyíve had candy in them.î
In Belgium they didnít have any candy around when he bought the shoes.
Or shoes, for that matter.
ěEverything was so short, but people could go out and get a chunk of wood and make a pair of shoes,î he says, and figured thatís what happened often.
Not, of course, when he got them home. And they didnít put candy in them either because there was no telling when company would come and Mary Henley would put them on.
But heís put it there this year, and if that isnít exactly following the Dutch tradition, itís pretty close.
In Europe, St. Nicholas Day on Dec. 14 was the day to give gifts, not Christmas.
And tradition has it that hanging the Christmas stocking on the hearth on Christmas Eve now in the hope that it will be filled with presents the next morning is a custom that goes back about 400 years to those wooden shoes worn originally in Holland.
There children put their shoes next to the hearth the night before the arrival of St. Nicholas and filled them with straw and food for his donkey that carried the gifts.
In exchange, St. Nicholas would leave them a small gift such as a little cake or a piece of fruit or candy. Eventually stockings were substituted for the shoes in Britain, most of Europe and in North America.
But today a pair of red wooden shoes are on Albert Monroeís coffee table, filled with candy and the memory of those other days when Mary Henley would slip them on and he could hear exactly where she was.
Editorís note: Albert Monroe died in January 2004 ó ěa gentleman to the very end,î one friend said.