This week's contribution is a replay and slightly revised version of my Christmas column which appeared on 12.17.2019, my ode to Fruit Cake. Since A Charlie Brown's Christmas has been kidnapped by Apple, another Christmas tradition lost to the Merchants of Money instead of being shown on free teevee, I thought I would bring back my traditional Fruit Cake column. Christmas traditions are important.
Merry Christmas.
Pitt

Once a year, like the Kraken, a horrible creature arises from the depths of the sea to terrorize those of pure heart and gastric system. I speak of the unspeakable — the fruitcake. Before delving into the origins and misuses of the fruitcake, consider its less toxic cousin — the Kraken. The Kraken was a giant sea monster living near the coast of Norway. It resembled a giant squid. Mr. Science considers the Kraken to be a Cephalopod. The Cephalopod family is even creepier and ookier, mysteriouser and spookier than the Addams family. The Kraken lies on the bottom of the ocean until it sees wooden sailing ships floating above. Like a Phoenix rising from Arizona, the Kraken will suddenly breach the surface of the ocean. It would wrap its tentacles around the ship, pulling it down into Davy Jones’ locker. The hapless sailors would be eaten by the Kraken, like so many apples bobbing in a barrel at an Amish barn dance.
Our old poetry-writing pal Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote a poem about the Kraken in the 19th century. Enjoy your cultural corner of the day, to quote Lord Al: “Below the thunders of the upper deep/ Far, far beneath the abysmal sea/ His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep/ The Kraken sleepeth.” It is best to let sleeping dogs and babies lie. This applies regarding Krakens. If you see a sleeping Kraken, don’t wake him up. If you see a fruitcake, don’t wake it up either.
If you are still reading this stain on world literature, ask yourself: “Self, why are Krakens better than fruitcakes?” Here is the answer: Krakens surface rarely, fruitcakes show up unbidden once a year during the Yuletide season. I would rather be eaten by a Kraken than eat a piece of fruitcake. A fruitcake is the only thing that will survive a nuclear attack other than Keith Richards, Twinkies, and cockroaches. Fruitcake contains unidentifiable ingredients, held together by a concrete-like cake structure denser than a black hole. Neither time nor light can escape from a fruitcake. Once the bilious green chunks of some hideous fruit are captured in a fruitcake, they can never escape. Fruitcakes are indestructible. Paleontologists opine that pyramids existed for millennia due to being constructed of fruitcakes. Fruitcakes are as good the day they were extruded from the factory fruitcake trough as they will be 10,000 years from now. Incidentally, fruitcakes make excellent door stops.
Every year around Christmas, fruitcakes rear their ugly heads. You never see a fruitcake in July. Like the Kraken, fruitcakes lie somewhere on the bottom of the ocean, or in a dusty factory in New Jersey; biding their time, waiting for Christmas. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless — Bill Drewry — threatened to give me a fruitcake one Christmas. He tried to hand me a fruitcake. The horror. The horror. This “gift” was without a trigger warning. It sent me into a state of fruitcake toxic shock syndrome, thereby generating this column in 2019. The only good thing about fruitcakes is that I don’t have to eat them.
However, seeing them does tend to set off a series of Christmas memories. My mother loved fruitcakes. We had them every Christmas. They would last until Halloween with no change in their complexion or texture. They would lurk at the back of the refrigerator, daring to be eaten. I would rather eat a giant sea worm.
As children at Christmas, we would drive to Washington, D.C., to see my grandparents. This was before the miracle of I-95. It was a 10-hour trip from Fayetteville to D.C. on Highway 301 which was replete with little towns and stop lights. Ten hours in a car at age 8 is a trip from here to eternity. The trip’s highlight was stopping at Stuckey’s, a roadside attraction filled with many wonders. Chicken thermometers, Santa figurines, funny postcards, toy guns in real leather holsters. All the good stuff an 8-year-old boy loves. We would buy orange juice and visit the head.
If I was really lucky, my parents might buy me a valuable trinket. On one trip, I scored a Famous Drinking Bird through massive wheedling. The Famous Drinking Bird had a red head, big red boots, and wore a black top hat. The Bird was filled with a mysterious red liquid, which was probably Kraken blood. By a miracle of physics, if you put the bird next to a glass of water, dipped its beak into said water, the bird would bob up and down for infinity, or at least until the water evaporated. It was bigly wonderful. I took good care of the Drinking Bird. It went to college with me many years later, where it dazzled and amazed countless fellow students.
Gentle readers, I trust you will have an excellent fruitcake-free Christmas. No fruitcakes were harmed during the writing of this column. To quote Tiny Tim: “Merry Christmas and may God bless us, everyone.”

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)