Story about snow...and Santa...and faith. All rolled up in the same piece.
(My favorite story about this time of year; not to mention it is absolutely true . With much of the nation experiencing above normal temps, some of your children -- adults too -- are asking you "Snow? Santa? Christmas?" I assure you that those things will occur -- they always do, every year around this time. How do *I* know? I've EXPERIENCED it.
Don Lemon is one of the Cable News Network (CNN)'s lead anchors; you can see him daily on CNN at midnight ET (11pm CT and 9pm PT) for his "CNN Tonight" news and commentary program.
He wrote to one of his CNN peers (and to all of us) that Santa was just a "promotional prop", a "fictional White character" not to be believed by anyone Black, I responded to him via CNN's Brooke Baldwin in 2013 in the following manner: Santa is only a *fictional character* if one makes him to be so; "Mr. Ho Ho" to *me* is a real person. I see him (her) every day -- in the positive actions that are performed by everyday people.
To me, Santa is *transparent* in color: if you see a Black or Asian man or woman performing acts of kindness toward others -- or a White or Hispanic man or woman helping someone with the only goal of making that other person feeling good -- THAT is the color of St Nicholas incarnate.
And to Don Lemon, I am one Black man who believes in Santa. Always have, always will.)
(From "Eagle Feathers", by Mike Walton/Settummanque (c) 2003)
Since shopping this book around, EVERY editor plasters this one story with all kinds of stickers:
"While I can understand that other parts of your book are based upon fact, you have to transform this into a fantasy story!" said one editor (I kept ALL of your snide comments, by the way -- they are in a file called "YEAH RIGHT!"). Another editor stated "You clearly made this up!" And others have weighed in between the two, asking me to either change this story or delete it entirely.
The story is true , factual, and most importantly reaffirms my faith in Santa Claus and faith itself even though many today have decided to "ruin the fun and excitement" and "tell children the truth".
The truth is...well, let me tell you what happened in MY case, and *you* decide what the truth is.
We live in the Greenwood section of Bowling Green, Kentucky. As I explained previously, Greenwood used to be a little sleepy town before the Corvette plant moved here from St. Louis... and the little sleepy town exploded into shopping malls and eating places, stores of all makes, and hotels. When we moved here, we were told that this was the "growth center" of Bowling Green, a town I don't like too much. To me, Bowling Green was not the "center of growth" in anything except racial hatred. It was the "southern capitol" of the Confederacy in Kentucky back in those days -- and a lot of people never forgot about it.
Ask the Rebels over in Todd County, next door. (They can call themselves anything they like, but let's leave hate filled speech out of it, okay?)
Anyway, Jessi was feeling homesick the second year we lived here. Where she is from -- central Kentucky (Bourbon County; Paris for those unfamiliar with the way we Kentuckians tell each other where we hail from) -- by the time November rolls around, there is a good layer of snow which has fallen and the air turns crisp and very cool. She loves that weather...
Bowling Green-- Warren County -- is too close to Tennessee, which has very seldom big snow storms and relatively mild weather. The week of Christmas, 1993, was no exception: Monday started with the temperature in the middle 40s and by midweek, it was to reach up into the 50s.
It has always been hard to get my girlfriend -- later to become my wife -- a Christmas present. Jessi does not like jewelry. Clothes shopping for the pear-shaped woman is almost impossible unless I take along someone who is familiar with Jessi's size and weight. Same goes for shoes and "girly things" I would want her to wear -- you know, Vicky Secrets kinds of things.
So when I once again asked her what she wanted for Christmas that year, I expected to once again get the same answer: "I really don't want anything for Christmas... let's get something for the two of us to enjoy."
We did that LAST Christmas: we bought a computer and a second phone line so that both of us could be in the same room doing "computer stuff" and school work.
I asked the question. She looked at me and started, "You know..." and then she surprised me.
"There's something I want but you can't give me."
"A child?"
"No, silly," she giggled, "not yet anyways!" I looked at her face. She was being serious.
"I would love to have a white Christmas. We've been here for three winters now, and the closest we had to a 'white Christmas' was that someone overturned a salt truck over on the Interstate...remember that?"
We both giggled, for I remember our "white Christmas" comments when we passed the detour for the overturned salt truck the first year -- the year we moved into the apartment in Greenwood.
"Okay." I stood up.
"Okay what?" she asked me.
"Okay. You want a "white Christmas"... that's what you'll get."
Jessi smirked.
"I'll go down and ask Santa Claus to do that for you....I'm sure I can't do it, and if there's anyone who's got a direct line to God, it's him."
I grabbed my green jacket and moved toward the front door.
"You're not going to ask Santa Claus to give me snow, are you?"
"I am and I will. I'll be back in a few hours..."
This was on the 22nd of December, 1993.
As I drove down the street toward the large Greenwood Mall, I overheard a conversation on the all-talk radio station from Nashville I was listening to. The weather guy was talking about a blast of cold air coming down from up north toward the end of the week, bringing about a change in our warm weather pattern.
"Heavy coats may be needed by the end of the week," he said in his matter-of-factly Midwestern voice.
"Yeah...we'll see about that..." I said to the radio, as if the announcer could hear my response.
I pulled into the Greenwood Mall and parked toward the main entrance. As I got out, I made a mental note where I parked and then looked around for the entrance which seemed to have more children going into than the others. That would be the entrance closest to Santa Claus.
Now let me stop here for a minute and explain why I have such a thrill about the jolly old man in the red suit. When I was ten years old, I wanted several things for Christmas -- the most important of which sits to this day on a nice shelf in my living room. I asked my Dad for a camera -- a "real camera that works" -- and later when we went to the large Robinson Barracks Shopping Center in Stuttgart Germany, I saw Santa.
I sat on his lap and explained to him all of the things I wanted for Christmas.
"Of all of the things you want, Mike, which is the most important?" I had no doubt. I looked at the white man in with the white beard and told him, "the camera. The Kodak Instamatic Reflex camera."
Santa whispered something in my dad's ear and then my dad whispered something back -- like they were exchanging address information or something. Santa then looked at me and said "Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas!"
I got all of the things I asked for: a new Boy Scout uniform; a racing car set; more Lego, and the camera. I knew where the Lego, the race car set and the Scout uniform came from...I never told my parents I wanted such a camera. Never saw it except in a window of a German camera shop, to which I paused and just looked at it. Santa came through.
As I stood in line, a family was behind me, complaining about the long lines, the heat from the store, the body odor from some people. They seemed to be trudging along for their kids, who spent more time away from them than beside them as we moved up the line.
"Where's your kids at?" the woman asked me as we were moving up the line.
"No kids. I have to put in a request for my girlfriend," I said.
She let it go at that. As I got closer, I noticed the girl in the elf costume typing information as Santa dictated to pages on a word processor. It was the first time I had seen a word processor being used in connection with Christmas or Christmas requests.
"Even Santa gets with the times," I said to myself.
Finally, it was my turn. The little boy behind me yelled out "You're not sitting on his lap! You have to sit on Santa's lap!" before being shushed by his mother.
"I think I'm bit too old for Santa's lap. So I'll just sit here on the step."
I then looked at the man sitting in the chair above me.
"Hey. I know this is going to sound really unusual, but you know if there's anyone who can do this, you can."
"Okay. What is it?" the Santa Claus asked.
I moved forward a bit. "My girlfriend misses the cold. The only thing she wants this year is for some snow. Not a whole lot...just enough for you to get on your way delivering toys and things for all of the kids. She wants a white Christmas."
The Santa looked at me to see if I was serious.
"You sure you don't want a camera or something?" He looked at the young woman and then back at me.
"I'm serious. I wouldn't have waited for almost two hours in this line if I wasn't. And I sure wouldn't want to waste your time with something that I didn't think you can do..."
The Santa man rubbed his nose and then looked at me.
"Okay, kid."
"Ho Ho Ho!" the man then bellowed. "You asked for snow...that's what you'll get!" He nodded to the young woman who typed up the words and I moved away from the platform as those closest in line started to laugh.
I walked about the mall a bit, and then back to the car. I drove home a little slower than I did to get to the mall, even though the apartment building was only three blocks away from the back of the mall.
Christmas Day came and like every morning, I get up first, walk to the "office room" and turn on my computer. I then turned and walked back out and down the stairs and toward the kitchen area. I grabbed the coffee pot, rinsed and poured fresh cool water from the tap into the glass pot, and then walked back over to the coffee maker and poured the water into the top of the machine. I then placed the pot on the burner and emptied out the old and placed fresh coffee grounds into the bin and placed the bin back into the top part of the coffeemaker.
"Merry Christmas, Mike!" I said aloud to myself, as I turned the coffeepot on and listen for the sizzle.
I walked back to the living room area and opened the blinds. I looked out at the street and saw the fresh layer of new snow. I walked back to turn on the TV set and then I turned back to look outside.
Snow. And it was still snowing at what -- 7 am on Christmas morning? I went to the door and opened the door all the way open and looked out. There was an untouched layer of snow all up and down the street. In the street. On top of and beside the sides of all of the cars and trucks parked in front of the apartments. On top of the bushes.
I ran upstairs and into the bedroom. I touched my mate's body at first and then shook it slightly.
"Good morning honies...Merry Christmas!" I was grinning from ear to ear.
"Good morning...come back to bed..." Jessi said. "I'm cold".
"That's probably because of the snow that's outside."
"Mike Walton. If this is a trick to get me up and out of this bed this freakin' early in the morning..." Jessi got up and stretched, "you and me gonna have some words. Snow! Are you still thinkin' that it's going to snow on Christmas morning -- we're in SOUTHERN KENTUCKY!" she said, as she went to the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
A couple of minutes later, she emerged, her bath robe completely around her. "Why is it so cold up here this morning??"
I continued to have this smile on my face and told her, "Just come downstairs!" I walked downstairs to go to the kitchen and make a cup of coffee.
Jessi walked down the carpeted stairs and looked over at the open doorway.
"That's SNOW out there!! How did you do that??"
"I didn't!" I said, walking around the corner from the kitchen, holding one of my favorite coffee mugs in my hand.
"And why are you trying to warm up all of Bowling Green with our heat?" she walked over and looked out the door before closing it.
She looked at me. I had that really smug look on my face.
"Okay. You're going to tell me that this was all your doing..."
I looked and pointed at the television set. The local news was starting their "reset" at the top of the hour, delivering the local headlines. They were showing snow on the roadway.
I turned the television up with the nearby remote.
"A freak winter storm came through here overnight to the delight of nearly everyone -- except travelers. The National Weather Service said that it was not predicting snow until after the first snowflakes appeared somewhere around 3am. This is the first time Bowling Green has experienced snow fall on Christmas Day in decades. Merry Christmas everyone..."
I turned the volume back down and looked at my mate.
"One thing you have to know about me, Jess,“ I said, "is that I carry a lot of faith. I may not be as strong of a Christian person as you are...I fall more than I walk...but I do have faith."
I walked over to her. "I have faith in my Savior, faith in you and me, and yes, I have faith in Santa Claus! Merry Christmas, Jessica!"
I kissed her on the bridge of her nose and then hugged her, my coffee cup way out from around our bodies as we stood there in our living room that Christmas morning, 1993.
The Bowling Green airport recorded an inch of snowfall that morning; other areas received as much as two or three inches. And it was ALL gone by 4pm Christmas Day, as the temperature reached into the high 30s.
To those who believe that I've made this up -- I ask you to please check out the National Weather Service records. Or the records from the ABC television station, WBKO -- the only station there in Bowling Green, Kentucky back then. Or just write to your friends living in Bowling Green or Nashville who remember that one year that it was nice and relatively warm on Christmas Eve... but as the weatherman said a few days back, "you'll need to have your heavy coat handy perhaps for Christmas Day..."
That is a wonderful story. I think in some malls, they wouldn't let you see Santa. I especially like that last line.
While Bowling Green, Ohio is more prominent, I do recall Bowling Green, Kentucky back when I was dating a girl from Paducah. And, I had a college friend from Bombay who was transferred to Campbellsville by Corning glass or Ingersoll-Rand from New York. He thought of the place as rather backward and was glad to be transferred again to Louisville.
We even get snow once in a while here in Houston. But it's been a few years.
'Catholic Voices in a World on Fire' Anthology, includes 'The Poorest of the Poor'; by Judy Joy Jones which is a chapter from her upcoming book about her volunteer work at Mother Teresas houses around the world including her house in Washington DC w
