For Thursday, October 17, 1997 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 744 words

Santa in the mist

For a long time, my wife has wanted me to catalog my childhood memories. I have resisted. I don't often write about my childhood because I'm afraid I'll forget what stories I've told and repeat myself. By writing only on what's new or imagined, I'm sure the pies are fresh.

I have an arrangement with my students. I have instructed them to signal me by scratching their noses in unison if I start to re-tell a story. It has helped me save time in the classroom.

Lately, I've been growing older. Some of those stories are fading away. Perhaps I should jot them down, just to be safe. The only thing worse than repeating old stories would be to have never told them at all.

So, here goes. Expect to read a few more nostalgic small-town '50s and '60s tales. And today (13^th) is my wife's birthday.

Did I ever tell you about the time that I played Santa Claus by dressing up as a gorilla? My four little Oklahoman girl cousins were visiting snowy Pennsylvania for the holidays one year. On Christmas Eve evening, the grown-ups all drove to town for a few hours, leaving seven kids and our Grandma Minnie alone in the house. I was the second oldest in my family, sandwiched between two sisters. That evening I was somewhere around 12.

The littlest ones were excited that night about Santa Claus coming, and we older ones were playing it to the hilt. "I hear him!"

My older sister, Carol, found some jingle bells. While the kids were in the living room, she snuck upstairs, hung the bells out the window, and shook them. "I hear him!" we all yelled. Then we ran out onto the back porch and looked up in the sky. Perhaps we'd see Santa riding against the moon. A while later, she rang them again, and we took off again, whooping and racing through the kitchen.

Later, we needed a second act. The audience was restless. I told my sister to keep the kids in the living room for 15 minutes. When she heard the bells, she was to bring everyone upstairs, instead of running to the back porch. "Bring them upstairs," I said, "and have them look out the window onto the roof."

I ran upstairs figuring I'd find some garment in my parent's wardrobe that resembled Santa -- a red coat, perhaps. No luck. I searched frantically for 10 minutes. Everything was not red. All I wanted to do was be seen by the kids for a quick glimpse as I hopped from the kitchen roof down to the bathroom roof, and away -- a flash of red, and a jingle of bells.

I ran to my own closet. I had nothing red, or white even. All my clothes looked like me. I couldn't dress up as myself and fool anybody. The coolest thing in my whole wardrobe was my gorilla costume that I got for Halloween that year. It was really cool, and my cousins hadn't seen it yet. "Ah, what the heck," I figured. "I'll wear the gorilla suit."

I crawled into the suit and climbed out my bedroom window, onto the kitchen roof. It was covered in snow, but the slope was gentle. I checked my escape route -- I'd leap down to the lower roof just as the kids pulled open the curtains; then down to the yard, lose the suit, run through the house, and join in the excitement of seeing Santa.

It was time. I put on my hairy mask and jingled the bells. I stuck my head in the window and laughed a hearty, "Ho! Ho! Ho!"

It was the hearty "Ho! Ho! Ho!" that foiled me. I should have just rung the bells and run like an ape. Instead, I waited until I heard the stampeding of little feet up the stairs. I turned to run and realized that I couldn't see much with my mask on. I'd rehearsed without a mask.

I was halfway across the roof when they opened the curtains. Suddenly, the laughing and squealing stopped. Facial expressions went from glee to consternation.

"What the heck?" they all said. That was one of my longest moments, there alone on the roof, my arms at my sides like a Smithsonian exhibit.

One of the little girls -- in fact, they were all girls -- said, flatly and with complete seriousness, "Why is there a gorilla on the roof?"