“Whenever skies look gray to me, and trouble begins to brew/Whenever the winter winds become too strong/I concentrate on you.”
Cole Porter.
It’s Christmas. The faithful concentrate on the birth of Christ, and that’s important, even if the date has been slightly mangled.
The business world concentrates on money, the social media on the pictures of their cats and dogs dressed up in paper antlers, and the children concentrate on, well, depending on one’s location or language: Pere Noel, Babouschka, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, St. Nick, or as he is billed in most department stores, Santa Claus.
God comes in many shapes to many religions, but Santa never changes. He’s welcoming, friendly and warm, and we tell him what we want and hope we’re going to get it. But as with God, sometimes the answer is “Your call is important to me. I’ll get back to you later.”
Santa, like God, is everywhere: on street corners with a bell, in department store windows and toy departments, church basements, television commercials, terrible movies and saloons. Yes, saloons, or taverns or maybe bars, wherever the faithful, the joyful, distressed and lonely congregate to imbibe.
In my childhood, which embraced most of the terrible 30s to the wartime 40s, every saloon, tavern and social club in the big cities had its own Santa. It was a tradition. Even bowling alleys and churches had their own Santa. In the war years, when daddies and brothers and uncles were away in the war, grandpa, or any old fogey who was awake would step in.
It began, my brothers remind me, during the last days of the Great Depression, as a fundraiser for the poor families, a competition between establishments to see who could raise the most money and who had the jolliest, fattest Santa.
During the year, saloons had their softball and bowling teams, but at Christmas, the Santa thing caught fire. The old bars would put up a scrawny tree, hang some red and green crepe paper, put Bing Crosby on the jukebox and lots of hard boiled eggs and sandwiches at the end of the bar. The first nickel beer on Christmas Eve was on the house. Lines formed at the door. Ask anyone over 80, they’ll remember.
Along the busy streets, shop owners would paint the windows with holly, fake snow and of course, Santa. My brother Kermit started his brief cartoonist career working the shops on Michigan Avenue, painting Christmas windows, dragging his red wagon through the snowy streets with his brushes and bottles of show card paint.
He got two bucks a window, and made out well, until Pearl Harbor put an end to his career. Today I sell my book. My mother raised a bunch of hustlers.
When the war took away all the men who could walk and write their names, the saloon Santa business took on a deeper more familial tone. I think in my neighborhood it started with the fattest fireman at the firehouse on the corner across from Skeeter O’Neil’s saloon. I vaguely remember his name as Otto. Otto was too old for the draft as were most of that crew, but somebody had to stay home and douse the Christmas tree fires.
Otto started out at Skeeter’s, and when he found out that a couple of the saloons down Michigan Avenue didn’t have a Santa that year, he began making a grand tour, balancing his bag and beers along the way. Eventually, I’m told, he started dropping in at fatherless homes in the neighborhood. Good for Otto. May he rest in peace.
Just before the first Christmas after my father died, and I had turned 10, my mother sent me to Haag’s Market to get a bottle of milk. As I passed Skeeter’s, there was Santa at the end of the bar, in full steam, beer in hand, belting out “Deck The Halls.” I stepped in the side door and stayed for three more carols before Mom sent my sister to find me.
Many years later I went back to the old corner for a visit and a grown-up beer. It cracked my heart to find that Skeeter’s had been torn down, and the firehouse closed. Not a Santa in sight.
This Christmas Eve when the winds blow cold, I’ll raise a glass to the saloon Santas.
Thanks for the memories, boys, I’ll concentrate on you.
J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer and the author of “Will Write for Food,” a collection of his columns.
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