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By Debra Beauregard

Like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, you never know what kind of Christmas you’re going to get until you bite into one. At my age, you’ve had a whole lot of spit-outs, but there’ve been a number of truly delicious ones, too.

I was 13 the Christmas of 1958, and we lived at West Point. My father was the IG, or inspector general, whose job was “to stick my nose in everyone else’s business.” He was given the choice of housing at Lusk, above the reservoir, prime real estate where all the full birds lived, or on Professors’ Row along Thayer Road. My parents chose the latter, Quarters 29, a big, old red brick thing built in the early 1900s, with four floors counting the basement. It sat up a little hill from the road, behind a stone wall, overlooking the Hudson River. Col. Dad made the right choice.

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 Beauregard lives in Botetourt County.