Silver Bells

A ringing holiday salute to my mother

My mom gives me a Wallace silver bell with my name engraved on it every Christmas. This is a tradition she has steadfastly kept going for her children our entire lives, despite the tough times of losing a farm in the ’80s and a fairly consistent underappreciation from the recipients. We’re never surprised by the small, perfectly wrapped boxes—the first gifts to appear under the tree each year.

One of the Wallace silver bells that hangs on our tree near an ornament with a picture of our daughters, Lilly and Annabel.

My wife, kids, and I had planned to travel to the Kansas City area to share in the annual post-Thanksgiving Saturday gathering at my Aunt Liz’s house. It’s a lovely tradition in which cousins, aunts and uncles from across the Midwest congregate to partake in a feast featuring Grandma Betty’s stuffing and other family favorites. Unfortunately, an impressive snowstorm kept us in Des Moines this year. My Mom had a birthday cake teed up for the occasion, adorned with a big 5-0 because of my recent milestone birthday. When I told her we weren’t going to be able to make it, she was rightfully disappointed but understood.

The snow clobbered Des Moines late last week. Here’s an action shot of me running the snowblower taken by my neighbor. Take special note of the snow angels in his yard made by his daughters. Photo by Jason Grinstead.

With the lack of travel, our core family unit celebrated in a more relaxed fashion. Cookies were baked. Leftover turkey sandwiches were made. Cocoa enjoyed. Cards played. The more it snowed, the more festive things became in our cozy corner of the world. Take that, Jack Frost!

Stacks of bell boxes rest on our piano during the decoration process.

As I hauled up the enormous Nutcrackers that were once my Grandma Betty’s and now stand guard beside our fireplace each December, I recalled to my wife how much I enjoyed the pomp of Christmas prep as a kid. My mom would go all out with decorations and holiday cheer. Dad would always make sure we had a real tree and plenty of firewood.

We had three fireplaces in the house — one was brick, one was limestone and one was made of pieces of petrified wood that Dad had collected over the years. Together they created a warm environment that felt straight out of a Currier and Ives book, save for the ’80s influence of GI Joe toys and video games scattered about by us kids. My brother and I created some epic army scenes in the pockets of the petrified wood fireplace.

Grandma Betty’s Nutcrackers protect our fireplace.

Turning Fifty

One of the many perks of having grown up in 1980s Fort Scott, Kansas is the bond of lifelong friendships forged in the fires of a small town childhood. Many of us were born just days apart in November of 1975. Our moms were literally in Lamaze class together and gave birth in the same hospital. As we’ve aged, we’ve drifted geographically but have maintained real love and admiration for each other.

Gathering with lifelong friends in Kansas City back in November that were also born in November of 1975 in our hometown of Fort Scott, KS. From left to right, Kendal Sinn, Chip Albright, Amy Roller, Nathan Bukowski and Casey Guilfoyle. Photo by Sarah Roller Moots.

Through the years, we have gathered for milestone birthdays and this year was no exception. As part of the festivities, someone on the planning committee requested that spouses and significant others create poster board collages for the celebrants. It was a nice addition to the event walking around the perimeter and seeing your good friends through various life stages with their goofy hair and baggy clothes frozen in time by the magic of photography. My brother-in-law, Robert, commented that it was nice to look at a photo board celebrating people who are still around. I concurred, wondering Why does it often take a funeral to bring out sentimentality and healthy nostalgia for the meaningful people in our lives? I suppose it’s another one of those “moving at the speed of life” issues. There’s usually just too much to do to survive and move forward in this hectic world to find the time and benefit from healthy reflection.

My wife, Jen, designed my collage for the 50th birthday celebration.

After placing the second Nutcracker at its post, I said to my wife, “I think I’ll write my next piece about my appreciation for mom on my 50th birthday. Maybe fifty symbolic rings of thanks—one for each silver bell on our tree?” Jen approved, so here we go:

My family circa 1983 in front of the petrified wood fireplace that Andy and I loved decorating with GI Joes and little green army soldiers. Back row: Andy, Barbara and Ron. Front row: Chip and Tonja.

50 Rings of Thanks

1. Thank you, Mom, for taking my collect call from jail on the night of my 21st birthday when I was arrested for obstruction of justice. Thankfully, that was my only night in the can along the way. (The charges were dropped, by the way.)

2. Thank you, Mom, for giving me my first detention in middle school. I had complained for weeks that Mrs. Machado was always favoring her son, JP, in class. You sure brought the hammer down when I started singing happy birthday (somewhat disruptively) to Mark Weddle on the first day of your study skills class quickly putting me in my place!

3. Thank you, Mom, for showing me what lifelong friendships looks like. Between your Ya-Ya Sisters and so many other dear friends like Pennie, Diana, Martha, Irene, LuAnne just to name a few, you’ve enriched many lives, and they yours.

4. Thank you, Mom, for demonstrating the power of resilience in so many ways.

5. Thank you, Mom, for being committed to your marriage. You and Dad will soon celebrate your 56th Anniversary. You were just kids when you were married. What an incredible achievement.

6. Thank you, Mom, for making me write my 4-H Handbook every year. What an annual battle royale that was between us.

7. Speaking of 4-H, thank you, Mom, for making me sign-up for the Clothing Carousel contest where I don’t remember whether or not I placed but I do remember wearing one of the shirts later to Eugene Ware Elementary School where I was asked if it was a girl’s shirt (because it was quite pink) by some of the tougher kids, but you had promised me it wasn’t when we bought it, and I told everyone that my mom said it wasn’t a girl’s shirt, it was actually “bisexual.” (The word “unisex” eluded me.)

8. Thank you, Mom, for making me try out for FSCC’s musical in 8th grade. I fought you daily on it and finally caved in after watching a Growing Pains episode in which Mike Seaver stole the show doing Little Shop of Horrors. I told you hours before the rehearsal that I’d give it a shot. You decided immediately that I needed to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” while holding my baseball glove. We raced to the tryouts as a late addition. Pat Harry rightfully didn’t assign me the part with that clear lack of commitment, but told me I did a solid job with the song.

9. Thank you, Mom, for going back to school and getting your administrative degree after we lost the farm. Your drive to succeed was relentless and admirable as you traveled nights to Pittsburg State University to elevate your career and provide for us in a new way.

10. Thank you, Mom, for starting Project Art in the USD-234 school district. To this day, kids still get to see professional productions of theater in the big city as part of their curriculum.

11. Thank you, Mom, for being so patient with me over the years. Like really, really patient sometimes.

12. Thank you, Mom, for fostering and then adopting our sister, Tonja, when she was abandoned at the age of six. The kindness and love shown over the years by you and dad was tremendous and forever meaningful.

13. Thank you, Mom, for not making me move out of that terrible basement apartment I rented sight unseen my second year of college at Kansas State. It was hideous and you rightfully questioned that move out of me. At least I only lived there one year.

14. Thank you, Mom, for encouraging me to finish my undergrad degree in rhetoric. I called to tell you the exciting news of my engagement to Jen and you used that conversation as an opportunity to get me to finish those last nine hours of math and science before walking down the aisle so it wouldn’t just say I “attended Kansas State University” in my wedding announcement.

15. Thank you, Mom, for reaching out to Mrs. Machado when we were visiting my college buddy Jonathan Butters in New York in 2000 with my then-girlfriend-now-wife, Jen. You and Cindy were still friends and her son, JP, was now playing for the New York Jets. You were convinced you could score tickets for us, and you did, despite my resistance. We had a blast that night.

16. Thank you, Mom, for signing me up for just about every community play as a child. Even though theater never really became my thing, I can still smell the Noxzema they slathered on us and remember falling off the ladder at Buck Run Community Center when I was playing Templeton in Charlotte’s Web to uproarious laughter from the crowd.

17. Thank you, Mom, for signing up for one my home health care policies. You have always supported my endeavors, even when I decided to finally chase music and writing late in my forties. Perhaps you’ll even become a paid Chip Happens Substack subscriber :)

18. Thank you, Mom, for throwing that crazy board game sleepover birthday party for me in fourth grade with like 20 boys. We broke the grandfather clock that night, but somehow not your spirits.

19. Thank you, Mom, for supporting all my debate camp trips during the summers in high school. I got to meet other teens from around the country and nerd out with them on the campuses of Baylor, Loyola Marymount and Michigan.

20. Thank you, Mom, for volunteering to drive us to some of those debate tournaments, even though driving at night made you extremely uncomfortable.

21. Thank you, Mom, for all your worry over the years. Much of it was justified, much of it not, but I’ve never once questioned if I was loved in this life.

22. Thank you, Mom, for dressing me in some wild outfits as a small child. My kids love these pics, much to my chagrin.

23. Speaking of outfits, thank you, Mom, for making us wear those hideous wool plaid outfits one Easter. I hid under the table in disgust. In retrospect, we were pretty cute.

24. Thank you, Mom, for suggesting Glen Gramstad and I enter the Good Ol’ Days lip sync contest as Sonny and Cher singing “I Got You Babe.” We won. I still hear from folks about my show-stopping performance as Cher.

25. Thank you, Mom, for your incredible legacy as an educator. You are loved by so many that had you as a first grade teacher or middle school teacher/administrator.

26. Thank you, Mom, for being such a great leader. For as long as I can remember, you have been chair of the FSHS Class of 1968 and worked hard to make every reunion successful.

27. Thank you, Mom, for spearheading the building of a new middle school during your tenure as principal. Getting the bond passed was not easy, but it meant so much to the students, staff, and community.

28. Thank you, Mom, for your celebrated retirement from education, where Don Miller said of you, “If you want to get something done, find a busy person,” in his speech at your party. I quote this all the time.

29. Thank you, Mom, for cranking Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” when you were first passed over for an administration job. You didn’t give up and eventually earned your legacy-making role at the middle school.

30. Thank you, Mom, for introducing me to Carole King. I listen to Tapestry every fall.

31. Thank you, Mom, for letting me go to KC to see U2 when I was 16 for my first major concert. I know it made you a “nervous wreck” but it’s given me a great answer for that classic icebreaker question in many small groups. Seeing Bono and The Edge in the Zoo TV Tour in 1992 with visiting foreign exchange students from Italy was pretty rad.

32. Thank you, Mom, for the Victrola. It still works and it always reminds me of the farmhouse you and Dad built where we spent so many wonderful years.

33. Thank you, Mom, for introducing me to the Beatles and letting me pull together mix tapes for your 20-year reunion. You even saw the Beatles live in 1964 at Municipal Stadium. Pretty cool.

34. Thank you, Mom, for the Pepe jeans I certainly didn’t need but very much wanted at some point in middle school.

35. Thank you, Mom, for convincing me to spend a day with your good friend Steve Miller when Jen and I went on that aforementioned trip to New York in 2000. We saw Cabaret in Studio 54 that night. It was moving.

36. Thank you, Mom, for winning that week-long condo stay outside of Orlando. Both sets of grandparents being together with our young daughters in Disney is a forever cherished memory.

37. Thank you, Mom, for organizing the train trip to Chicago with Andy’s family. The eleven of us visited museums, ate, laughed, played games and saw Hamilton. More forever memories.

38. Thank you, Mom, for driving that huge station wagon with the wood paneling during our childhood. We could sure cause some trouble from that way back seat that looked backwards.

39. Thank you, Mom, for hiring Casey Guilfoyle and me to DJ middle school dances.

40. Thank you, Mom, for taking us boys to all those baseball card conventions with Casey’s mom, Martha, on the southside of KC with our younger brothers.

41. Thank you for loving dad.

42. Thank you for making family a priority.

43. Thank you for being tough.

44. Thank you for being soft.

45. Thank you, Mom, for your relentlessness. Many things have been hard and unexpected along the way, but you’ve always persevered by pushing and/or pivoting.

46. Thank you, Mom, for letting me ride that turquoise blue Suzuki moped that Grandpa Buddy gave me the summer of my 8th grade year. I know it made you nervous, but I sure loved zipping around town with my friends all day for less than a dollar of gas.

47. Thank you, Mom, for signing me up for almost everything in grade school — tennis, golf, community plays, 4-H, swim team, basketball, football…you sure did a lot of commuting into town from our house out on the blacktop of Catt School Road.

48. Thank you, Mom, for recently sharing with me your memories of when I came into this world. You said it was a warm November day when you went into labor, you were even wearing shorts, but a snowstorm much like the one we just had in Iowa blew into Bourbon County. Grandpa Buddy used his Jeep Honcho to fetch us from the hospital and deliver us to your doublewide trailer on the farm where family members anxiously awaited our arrival for Thanksgiving dinner.

49. Thank you, Mom, for instilling in me the spirit to be thankful. It’s been a blessed 50 years to be your son, and I’m the benefactor of so much because of you, your efforts, and your indomitable spirit.

50. Thank you, Mom, for being you.

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To find more stories and insights across the state of Iowa, please consider following and supporting the many talented journalists and storytellers of the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative of which I’m a proud member. The IWC Holiday Party will be Wednesday, December 17 at the Harkin Institute in Des Moines at 7pm. It’s FREE for any paid subscriber to any IWC writer column, including this one, or $35 the night of the event. The award-winning duo Weary Ramblers will be performing and IWC authors will be on hand for socialization and goodwill. Please RSVP here. Speaking of the Weary Ramblers, I am opening for them at the Parea in Glenwood, Iowa, on December 13th at 7pm. It’s going to be a lovely night and tickets are limited but available here.

NOTE: All annual paid subscribers to Chip Happens will now receive a copy of my 2025 CD compilation, Twenty-Five, that includes 25 original songs. To those of you that have already upgraded and purchased the CD, my sincerest of thanks! You are a critical component of making Chip Happens! You can upgrade your subscription here and receive a copy for your physical music collection. If you are only in the market for the CD, it is available here for $25. CD art and design were completed by my amazing and talented wife, Jen Albright. To set an appointment with Chip regarding caregiver insurance and alternatives to traditional long-term care insurance, please click here.