Mistletoe needs to make a comeback

I’ve been making a list — and checking it twice — of things that have been disappearing in my lifetime.

Waxing nostalgic, let me begin with encyclopedias, VCRs and video stores. I have included manual transmissions, along with classified ads, clocks with hands, road maps, cursive writing and almost everything to do with Alexander Graham Bell — pay phones, land lines, phone booths, phone books and fax machines.

(I would add parking meters to the endangered list, but they have made a rather unfortunate reappearance in downtown Macon.)

Which brings me to mistletoe.

Although I’m not willing to place it on any vanishing watchlist, I’m concerned about its welfare. Whatever happened to the holiday tradition of kissing under the mistletoe?

Tis’ the season to pucker up. Or sneak up on a cheek. Has innocence been rattled by the #MeToo movement and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” backlash?

Sigh.

Mistletoe is not in any danger of becoming extinct. In rural areas, it grows like weeds. In some neighborhoods, it’s urban sprawl across the tops of trees.

It mostly stays undercover, hidden by foliage for much of the year. You never really notice it clinging high in the branches until the bare-limb landscape of winter arrives, and its clusters are visible up there with the squirrel nests.

To be regarded as a symbol of romance, mistletoe isn’t getting much love these days. I don’t know too many folks who still bother to hang it in their hallways and above their doors. Despite everything else getting stolen these days — identity theft, home burglaries, car break-ins — there sure isn’t much talk about “stealing a kiss” under the mistletoe.

Once upon a time, there was a guy who sold it every Christmas season in front of the shops at Ingleside Village, but I haven’t noticed him there in a while. A few years back, I approached several of the Christmas tree vendors at the Farmer’s Market to see if they had any. I might have had better luck asking for the aisle with the 8-track tapes.

My history with mistletoe goes back to the eighth grade, when I would shoot it out of the trees with a pellet gun. My buddy, Kim, had a small pond behind his house, surrounded by a circle of trees top-heavy with it.

For a couple of 14-year-old boys, it was more about target practice than harvesting mistletoe. After we got it down, we didn’t much know what to do with it. We still hadn’t discovered girls. We were too busy building model airplanes and reading comic books.

I was introduced to kissing girls two years later when I spent the night with another friend. A couple of young ladies were invited over to the house for a game of “spin the bottle,’’ which I found out was a whole lot more fun than playing “kick the can.’’

Mistletoe folklore has been around for thousands of years. It is tied to life and fertility. Actually, it’s a parasite with a reputation as an aphrodisiac.

It is reported to have medicinal value. It has been used in clinical trials for cancer research, and reportedly possesses healing properties to treat seizures, hypertension, arthritis and infertility.

Of course, there’s a flip side, since mistletoe also is poisonous. It can cause blurred vision, nausea, diarrhea and enough side effects for 22 seconds of disclaimers in a 30-second pharmaceutical commercial.

In many ways, mistletoe is a kissing cousin to kudzu, which is not a parasite but certainly a pest. Kudzu was brought over from Japan to combat soil erosion and became known as the “vine that ate the South.’’ Kudzu will grow right before your eyes in every direction, then retreat after the first frost. Mistletoe keeps a low profile until the cold winds rattle those high limbs.

I’m rooting for mistletoe to rally and return as a more prominent Christmas tradition. In the meantime, as the song implies, what the world needs now is love, sweet love. It starts with a kiss.

Ed Grisamore teaches journalism at Stratford Academy in Macon. His column appears on Sundays in The Telegraph.