If you had ever driven past the house during the holidays, you would have remembered it. The house wasn't notable because of the quantity of lights adorning its exterior or because their placement was particularly attractive. It wasn't even the kind of lights display that you would tell people you had seen. Rather, it was . . . eccentric.

You would have noticed the giant stuffed Santa wrapped in a cocoon of weather-proofing plastic. You would have noticed the plywood sleigh holding the fat guy that could have easily passed as a half-assed treehouse. You certainly would have taken note of the awkward homemade lit reindeer. Given enough time, you might have figured out that what was "off" about them was that they had long tails like a German Shepherd. Once you noticed that, you would have debated whether they actually were deer, or if those were giant dogs lined up and pulling the treehouse/sleigh.

You would have tried to figure out the reasoning for the placement of the strings of icicle lights. Some of the strands were all white, some were a rainbow of colors, but all hung in seemingly random ways. They were strewn at an oddly low yet high height in the tree branches. Other strands had been used to create a curtain of light surrounding the perimeter of the yard. No matter how many times you drove past the house, you never would have found any logic in the glowing orbs.

The first few times I drove past the house, I laughed at the tacky display of Christmas cheer. I openly mocked the insanity of it all. It was the very definition of Christmas Crazy.

The chuckles stopped the first time I saw him--the homeowner. One day I noticed him as I drove past the cacophony of decorations. He stood atop a wobbly old ladder, carefully tugging on a strand of lights that had become twisted in the wind. He was all of five feet tall and couldn't have weighed more than a buck ten, even soaking wet. His dark skin proudly bore the hundreds of badges of honor it had earned over the years in the form of wrinkles.

I asked a friend who had lived in the neighborhood for decades about the old man. "He's been doing that display since my daughter was Alexis' age," she said. Alexis was two at the time, and the daughter was in her 30's. A few other details helped piece together the puzzle and it became clear that the man was easily in his 80's.

We drove past the house tonight and for the first time in the ten years we've lived in Pittsburgh, there were no lights in the yard. There were no crazy reindeer. There was nothing but blackness enveloping the strange cars in the driveway and the newly landscaped yard.

I can only imagine what has happened to put an end to the memorable display of cheer. I know, however, that whoever that man was who spent hours each year putting together the eccentric collection of glowing holiday joy, he made a difference.

I will remember him.