Snow Soldiers, Sunny Skies
Snow Soldiers, Sunny Skies
Hawaiian Hard Days
December 7, 2018
The Saint, The War, A Sunday
Could it have been that Santa Claus heard the planes on their way to Pearl Harbor?
What if the noise of the attack was so loud that Santa, a perspicacious fellow, knew that something was quite amiss and so he jumped into his sleigh – which was still being painted – and zipped through the frigid Arctic air and above the unforgiving waters and pushed Dancer, Dasher, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen to fly as fast as possible to Hawaii.
But he was too late.
Had he made it a few hours earlier he might have saved a lot of lives. Or maybe Santa would have been shot out of the Hawaiian sky and landed in the ocean and he and his reindeer would never have been heard from again.
World War II was tough enough already and we shudder to think what it would have been like without Santa.
Or maybe Santa was indeed killed in 1941. Or 1916 or 1861 or 1951 or 1968 and each time someone else rose up to replace him and we will always need a new Santa because we will always have war.
We think the current Santa is getting a little slow. We think he’s been with us since 1974 and has gritted through quite a bit but managed each time to dodge the bullets. We think he has a few years left on top.
When he is replaced, it will be a phantom, a ghost, a spirit and a song. A cold exhale of winter night that will still, somehow, give us Christmas warmth. --TK
Friday, December 7, 2018