THE LAST SANTA YEAR

By the time I was ten, I knew for certain that extra present was really from my parents. I was also naughty enough to hang on to the Santa image just to get it. It would be my last year.

My parents didn't say to me, THERE IS NO SANTA and NEVER HAS BEEN. They let the dream play on until the winter of 1954 on Kneale Avenue.

Now this is bizarre, even yet. I am hopeful I can explain this to you how it happened.

History: The basement of the house had been remodeled to add a recreation room, office, bathroom, and the unfinished part had the laundry and the furnace.

The old upright radio and phonograph had been moved to the basement along with the other cast off furniture. Although I never liked basements, and still don't, it was where I was to play in the winter.

On a sunny day, while sitting on the sofa, playing Bozo records and following along in the book that came with those 78rpm records, I glanced up at the gas log fire place built into the corner of the room.

The sun was shining into the basement and since the fireplace was a gas log, and there was no backing, it cast its light into the pit, (of sorts) and made a shadow of a something on the wall behind the furnace. Remember now, the furnace was in another room.

What was that? What cast that shadow? It was scary and eerie all together. The sun faded and the shadow disappeared. Yet, I could not get the image to leave my being.

I went into the laundry room, past the dog's bed and looked behind the furnace. It was a sled!

And so I told daddy what I found.

And that, dear ones, is the last Santa year for me. Now it was my turn.

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