Lights On

Last night Harpoon Murphy turned on his Christmas lights. You notice I said turned on and not put up. The lights are strung all around his house, in several trees, over three dead cars in his front yard, and on each side of a quarter mile of road that lead down to his house. This little tradition of lighting his property started over twenty years ago and has grown bigger every year. The first year, after Christmas, Harpoon and some of the guys who work in his tire shop took down all the lights and stored them away for a year. This only happened once and since then the lights have stayed in place with new lights added year by year. The power company complained because they were afraid the overload would affect other customers, so Harpoon bought several generators and stationed them around his property to help with the lighting. People can park on the side of the road and walk down the drive to get a better view of the lights. When they get down to the house Harpoon and/or his wife are there to greet them and to hand out a little flyer advertising his tire business. I reckon that's one way to celebrate Christmas.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Coming soon: More Tales of Harper (an ebook on Amazon)