#93...the Date

The exact date escapes me at the moment. It was late fall, 1952, I’d just turned 7. Donny, Mark and I, second graders, were walking home from Madill School. Walking beside the wire fence that surrounded the whole block that was Mr. Well’s property, we were at the half way point in the block when Donny says, “there’s no Santa Clause!”. Mark says, Yeah I know, it’s really our mom and dad that put the presents under the tree.”

They looked at me and I screamed at them, right in their faces, “LIARS, LIARS, LIARS.”

My face was livid and the tears running down my cheeks were evaporating before they could reach the edge of my jaw and drop off. I ran the remaining four blocks home, alternately sobbing and yelling back, at those two, profanities and curses galore.

When I slammed through the front door and into the living room of our house my mother, standing at the ironing board and ironing, said, “What’s got you all riled up?”

I told her that Donny and Mark had said that Santa wasn’t real and that our mom and dad were really Santa. “They lied, right mom?”

I don’t rightly recall what her reply was, but Santa died that day for me and I’ve never forgiven Donny or Mark for stealing my innocence that afternoon by Mr. Well’s fence!