SANTA MEET MATTHEW

Santa, meet Matthew

After a number of re-writes and rejected submissions to various publications, this was posted to the Brazil Times website on December 22, 2008.  I have always suspected no one would publish it because that at first read it seems like a bit of fiction, but it is all true.

Matthew is grown now, with children [and grandchildren] of his own… and I have immeasurable pride in him.  But, once upon a time he was five, and this is a true story for true believers. Maybe such things only come once in a life for anyone.  Usually it only happens with children, anyhow.  It did happen one Christmas which somehow seems just a few years back. Santa came to bring Matthew one lone gift.

It's nice when they believe in Christmas.  The best years are from about three up through Kindergarten -- roughly the time between when they really feel the excitement for the first time and the last time they only ask for one special thing and are delighted if they get it.  After the first grade, though, they become little mercenaries.  They still say they believe, but it's only to get a higher percentage of the items on ever growing lists.

Matthew was five the year of Santa's final true visit.  Matthew took his little sister to see Santa; she was a mere three so she needed his help.  "There's no reason to be scared, Susan.  Santa is here to help.  Just tell him what you want for Christmas and he'll come Christmas night -- if it snows."  The historical record is unclear as to what, if anything, Susan requested.  It's quite possible when it comes time to actually talk to Santa three-year old sisters are not troopers at all.

All Matthew wanted himself was "a machine gun" ...like the one he'd seen ...at a flea market ...one time…six months before.  Santa wasn't sure if such a thing was still available.  The problem when dealing with a five year old is that they really do only want one thing.  Nothing else will do.  When they ask for a thousand toys, no one item is missed.  When they want only one thing, a thousand other toys would disappoint.  Santa would find such a weapon, somewhere (and maybe a few other things, too).  Matthew had, it may fairly be recalled, been a very, very good boy.  And, Matthew was a believer.

From Matthew's point of view there was only one problem:  "Santa can't come if it doesn't snow.  He has to have snow for his sled to ride on or he will stay away."  It was going to be hard to get around that fact.  If a machine gun showed up on Christmas morning but snow didn't, it wouldn't be from Santa.

The weatherman, -- obviously not a believer-- intoned there would be no white Christmas for the St. Louis area that year.  Matthew broke the sad news to Susan:  "If it doesn't snow Santa can't come.  That means we won't be getting any toys.”

Mr. & Mrs. Santa Claus went to bed that night assured the hard-to-find "machine gun" would be arriving on schedule, but they were not the least bit sure how Matthew would react (or what he'd believe) if there was no explanation for lack of snow.

Truly one of the great rewards of parenthood is Christmas morning.  You lay there pretending to sleep and listen.  With the very young come squeals, with the older there are stage whispers.  The older, begin most experienced, send the younger to wake mom and dad.  They sneak into the room, afraid to wake you but wanting desperately for you to get up.  No one dares to touch a single thing until mommy and daddy say O.K.  You feign disbelief.  Are you really sure Santa left something for you?  Weren't you a couple of baddies all year?  Maybe it's all for daddy!  Then you get up.  If you're lucky they let you go to the bathroom first, but absolutely no breakfast or morning coffee until the very last package is opened.

This particular morning it was Matthew's voice which aroused the family like a Los Angeles earthquake, "It snowed!"

There it was.  Not enough for to call snow in Indiana.  Not really enough to be worth shoveling -- it'd be gone by noonday.  But, it had indeed snowed at least half an inch.

Then there were the tracks across the front lawn.  Matthew himself showed us not only sled tracks in the "drifts", but deer prints!  Here was indisputable proof Santa had come -- just as Matthew had believed he would.  And there, this Christmas, unwrapped and leaning on the Christmas tree, still in its original package, was a toy machine gun.

Big brother Nathan, who was at best a doubter, thought maybe, just maybe, the sled tracks had been made by the paper boy's bicycle -- and the neighbor's Great Dane had paws as big as a reindeer.  These doubts we neglected to communicate to Matthew on that particular occasion.

As the years passed the lists grew longer in direct ratio to diminishing enthusiasm for store front Santas.  There would always be gifts, and Christmas, and family.  As far as anyone at our house can determine, though, Kindergarten was the last time Santa came to a true believer who deserved a real visit from Santa.

There still remains one thing I've never understood.  On the day of Santa's last visit I had to go to work.  As I left the driveway and drove down the block, I turned the corner and noticed a peculiar thing.  Under a cloudless sky, on a relatively warm December day, there was no snow to be found.  Nowhere else in the neighborhood, nor in the city, nor in the state, nor in the two state area.  Only in front of Matthew's house did it snow.

SANTA, MOTHER & ME

Santa, my mother, and me

If you were working – and white – there were no greater days to live in America than the years from the end of “The War” to the coming of Kennedy.  This blog, first published on Brazil Times website December 15 2008, is something of a first memory of being a child in 1940’s during the great days which shall never return.

It must have been 1947, age four, when I first met Santa.  Or maybe it was yesterday, or this morning. Isn’t it strange how Santa and the human mind work?  Whenever it was I know he is alive and well and hasn’t aged a day.

My mother walked us up the three blocks or so to the F. W. Woolworth store.  It might have been the S. S. Kresge store, but I don’t think so.  It was a gigantic place, with a second floor and everything.  Actually it was one of many fascinating stores and banks and a slaughterhouse on a main commercial street in St. Louis.  But, it was getting to go up to the second floor of Woolworth’s that sticks in my mind.  That was probably where all the “women’s work” stuff was sold, and surely the double staircase was too much for a mere three-year old; so I’m sure I had never been up there before.  On the second floor, in the back, sat Santa.  My mother explained he wasn’t the real Santa, but one of his helpers.  She told me who the real Santa was, but it was many years and a kid of our own before I knew the truth.

I asked Santa for one of those riding cars.  They were something like the Big Wheels which came much later, but they were made of real metal and you could sit in it (if you were four) and peddle it down the sidewalk and everything.  The reason I know it was a riding car is not because I clearly remember it, but because my mother told me years later of my father staying up all night trying to figure out how to put the darn thing together.  They hadn’t known how much I wanted it until I’d told Santa.  She reminded me of this after spending a similar night putting together a rocking horse for our first-born.

The reason I am so sure I was only four at the time is that we moved [the next year in] the November after I started Kindergarten and my grandparents bought the house we had lived in.  The result was that Santa didn’t get our forwarding address in time and we had to go back to “big grandmother’s” house for Christmas.  Whether there were any Santa’s helpers in our new neighborhood eludes my memory (maybe you are only supposed to remember the first time you meet Santa). The thing that most clearly stands out is how high my brother and I thought the ceiling was in grandmother’s living room.  The chandelier towered above us.  Years later my brother, who was a good six inches shorter than I, hit his head on that chandelier.  [For reason not gone into here we were not allowed in the living room during “The War”.]

Anyhow, my mother, who was certainly one of the wisest women to ever walk the earth, never hid from us who Santa really is.  She told us the truth about him when we were only four, and said it again many times over her ninety some years. The secret of Santa is something of a spiritual thing; perhaps understood only by parents, or maybe not even until you become grandparents.

“Santa Claus”, she often repeated, “is the Spirit of Christmas.  Wherever the Spirit of Christmas is, Santa Claus is.”  She was right, of course.  Santa lives, he is alive and well in Brazil Indiana – especially for four year olds.  Santa Claus lives because the Spirit of Christmas lives.

SOMEBODY OWES ME A WHITE CASTLE

Somebody owes me a White Castle!

This first appeared on this date in 2008 on the Brazil Times Website, ten years past now.  As of last week I still thought, “I’ll ask Terry”.

On December 11 2003 my only brother, Terrance Richard Lewis, passed from this life into his eternal reward.  We may have from time to time disagreed on the path through life, but never on the destination.  I was the only one who could get away with calling him by his given name, maybe one of the few who even knew it.  One would like to think that in heaven at least everyone knows him the way he wanted to be known, as just plain “Terry”.

Most of what I learned growing up I was introduced to by Terry.

     On those rare occasion I was in his favor he’d let me listen to radio with him.  It was one of those console things, taller than me at the time.  I don’t remember much about what turned out to be the dying golden days of radio.  Terry listened to mysteries mostly.  Superman was one, but our favorite was The Inner Sanctum.  My life long interest in “who done its” came from Terry.

     He took me swimming when I was still in Kindergarten, rock climbing a few years later.  Once in a while we’d go to the movies and got me interested in things like “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, ever hear of it?  He taught me the “why?” of electric wiring, and then left me his electronic maze of a room when he left home.

     As I recall he also introduced me to that then new literary masterpiece “Playboy”.  Unfortunately I was much too young then to appreciate the esoteric significance of this contribution to the American classics.  By the time I might have been more appreciative he had decided to enter ministerial studies and that was the end of his first edition Playboy collection (probably worth a fortune now).

We always teased each other about which one was smarter -- he was.  I, of course, was then and am still the better looking.

One thing Terry can’t be convicted of is introducing me to White Castle hamburgers.  This was the great child-rearing failure of our parents.  I recall they were twelve-cents the first time I was old enough to share in the traditional family Sunday afternoon feast.  Our folks moaned about how they had always been ten-cents.  Terry could always eat more of them than anyone.  Our sister, Diane, had a limit of two.  By my teenage years I worked up to my “final answer” of four at any one meal.  Terry always got At Least six, and ate any leftovers.  Even toward what was to be the end of his life he’d gorge himself on “slyders”, usually showing up with two bags full. 

We had a long standing bet that whoever died youngest had to buy the one of us who lived the longest a White Castle.  As of now I have lived longer than Terry did by almost three weeks, so officially I win.  Turns out it was a sucker bet – he outsmarted me again.  How am I supposed to collect?  Somebody owes me a White Castle!

XMAS FIRES OPENING SALVE

Xmas Fires Opening Salvo

This blog first appeared on the Brazil Times website August 4, 2008 and turned out to be the first of three written that year.

August 2 2008 was the 214^th day of the year, with 152 to follow.  There would be another ninety-four days until we elect the next President of the United States.  In only six days the Olympics would begin in China (allowing for a two-week reprieve from 24/7 election coverage).  And, it was officially the first day to receive an appeal to help some poor unfortunate next Christmas.

I may well be proved wrong, but I think this is the earliest yet appeal to give money out of some presumed “Christmas spirit.”

Getting on this mailing list is mostly my own fault.  A while back our granddaughters were selling magazine subscriptions for some school project.  I just figured it was payback time.  At the same age I’d conned my grandparents into buying stuff they didn’t want to help my school.  Now it was my turn to pony-up.  There was one particular magazine I had wanted to read since it was first published by, among others, Billy Graham.  I took one year’s worth (which was not renewed).

Someone once said that if you want really fascinating mail try filling out a survey giving a personal annual income in excess of $250,000.  It is amazing, though, what mail you do get when you subscribe to any particular magazine.  A big part of a magazine’s income is from selling “fresh leads” to like-minded purveyors.  This is probably why a non-liturgical layman would be blessed with a very expensive-to-produce catalog of liturgical ropes and related items.  And, why I start getting Christmas appeals on the Second day of August this year of our Lord Two-Thousand-Eight.

I know something about direct mailing, having once in my sinful youth taken a “direct” part in same.  I do try to look at all of it, knowing how much it cost someone I never met to get into my hands.  Also, I know it works -- if it didn’t work junk mail would die in a week.  And, I have every reason to believe this mailing was legitimate:  It was endorsed by one of the best known names in American evangelical churches.

But, I wonder:  Why exactly are we appealed to in the name of Christmas?  If a need, an appeal, a human endeavor is worth doing, is it not just as worth doing in August?  Also, most of the approaching onslaught of seasonal petitions will contain some appeal to “so they can have a Christmas.”  Are we being asked to give dessert to children who have no dinner?

In the end there will be too many appeals, and not all can be mollified.  There must be some criteria by which to sort them out.  I suggest two things to those who would send (and will receive) the barrage of Seasons Greetings which will now certainly explode:

First, if the only hope of support lay in the spirit of Christmas giving, it may be time to reevaluate the importance of the mission undertaken.

Second, say exactly what you are doing, and give opportunity to decide whether what you are doing is something worth personal involvement.  Only then have you earned the right to ask for money.

So, is August 2^nd the record; or is it just plain too early for “Xmas”?

DEAR ABBY SKELTON

Dear Abby

In the process of reading through my 2008 blogs the first thing I have to decide is what would be worth any one else reading.  This, first published on the Brazil Times website on October 2, 2008, I thought worth while. 

(Note to Abigale: "Dear Abby" is a play on words you are not old enough to appreciate.)

Dear Abby, I Love You

Long, long ago when I was in the sixth grade there was a boy in our class named Dennis.  He was a nice enough kid as I remember, but what I remember mostly is that there was a rumor about him that his parents were divorced.  I don’t think I really knew what that meant.  I had a friend whose father had died when my friend was seven.  And I had met a boy whose father had been killed in The War.  But divorce was something I had to ask my parents about.  Dennis was okay, I was assured, it was probably not his fault his parents were, well, divorced.

Kay and I seemed to have done all right.  We will soon be married forty-four years [now going of 54], have five married children who seem to be as happy as this life affords.  The only thing I ever wanted in life was to love my children and hopefully know they knew I loved each of them.  As grandchildren came, I more-or-less approached these new additions to our family with the same want and hope.

The best years for grandkids are before they are five, when they still believe any silly thing granddaddy says.  As they grow up they catch on to when granddaddy is teasing, and they somehow learn that the only excuse for keeping a granddaddy at all is to have someone extra whose only job is to love them.

About a year ago eight year old Abigale came into our life as ninth grandchild.  She was part of the package we got when “I” picked out Steve as the best possible man for our only daughter.  I suppose this makes us one of those “blended” families with which I have no practical experience.  At the wedding Abby said she wasn’t sure what to call me. She apparently already had both a grandfather and a grandpa.  Since she didn’t have a granddaddy, I volunteered for the job (I’ve always preferred granddaddy, anyhow).

"Abby" is a bright, “busy” child who has perfected the art of bugging her daddy (a very necessary ingredient in daddy training). My problem is she didn’t have the marvelous opportunity to know me for those previous eight years.  The sad result being she doesn’t get my weird, obtuse humor. So I never know if she knows when I’m teasing; nor am I sure she understands I only tease people I love.  Loving Abigale is a most natural thing for me; it’s what she generates in me and who I am.   I guess I just selfishly want to know that she knows that I love her.

When our daughter, Susan, was in grade school she reported one day she was the only one in her class with no “steps” – no stepsisters, stepbrothers, nothing.  The world had changed a lot since my grade school days. I don’t know whether or not it has changed for the better, but I shall try hard to change with it.

Dear Abby, I love you,

Granddaddy