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Life, actually…
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THE NIGHT SANTA CLAUS SAVED MY LIFE
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Just past the age of seventeen, about a billion years ago, I’m walking the late-night long walk home from my job as an on-air announcer at the local public radio station. It’s nearly Christmas and, like many Tuscaloosa days, the morning begins warm and humid, so I wear my short-sleeved shirt and jeans to work.
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Now, after a long day indoors, I’m realizing that a cold front has descended and suddenly I’m walking home from work in sub-freezing weather circa 1959 A.D.
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It’s cold, so cold.
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My Cushman motor scooter, held together with duct tape and optimism, has finally
broken down and the only way to get from the University Campus to Eastwood
Avenue is to trudge. There’s no traffic at all.
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I have to walk east on University Boulevard and cut across the railroad tracks to get to 15th Street, but it’s getting harder and harder to do this, my breath coming in short and frosty gasps.
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Everything is starting to freeze up.
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My painful nose and painfully cold toes are protesting. My bare arms are
screaming for fur.
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Gloveless hands are poked down into my too-thin pockets. Thighs are cold for lack
of thermal underwear.
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My teeth are gritted tight against their chatter and at this point, I’m wondering
whether I can make it. I remember all those tales about people freezing to death
without knowing it, and at this moment, I’m not knowing if I can make it.
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I’m tired of painful walking.
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It’s too cold to walk.
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Now I’m feeling drowsy…
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What will be the last thing I see?
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Childhood comes ‘round in my mind. There’s Santa, coming to take me back into
his arms. I can always depend on Santa. He’s made me feel good in the worst of
times.
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Wait—where am I? I’m walking along in the darkness—and I’m hallucinating
about SANTA!
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But now I hear Santa, I actually hear him.
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This has got to be the end of me, I chatter to myself, leaning in the wind.
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What I hear are sleigh bells, and who has sleigh bells Down South on a
snowless, freezing-cold night?
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I look around to find Santa, and see an old pickup truck, trundling along, a loose
chain dangling from its rear gate making those sleigh bell sounds. The truck
slowly passes, heading toward the railroad tracks.
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I shake my head and laugh involuntarily.
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The rush of adrenalin from my laugh and my embarrassment gives me enough energy and body heat to jump-start myself.
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I’m inspired and ready to walk faster, now. The truck’s chains have given me the
boost I need to survive.
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Then, squinting ahead, I remember the receding truck and want to maybe hitch a ride or at least thank the driver.
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Way off in the distance I see a red-mittened hand and a flash of fluffy white cuff
poke outside the driver’s window for an instant, as it disappears across the tracks and into the distance. A wave?
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I rub my eyes and the truck is gone.
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My pace quickens, and soon I am home, warming my hands and thighs over the
hallway floor furnace, drinking hot chocolate, and remembering with a sheepish grin and
unclenching teeth the moment when I really believed Santa was coming to rescue
me.
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Now, all these many decades later, I really do believe it
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© Jim Reed 2025 A.D.