By Clint McElroy
HQ 63 | AUTUMN 2007
My buddy Spud Rimshot has always had a somewhat skewed view of Christmas, and it’s no wonder. When your best holiday memory is your old man being hauled off to the hoosegow, you probably aren’t going to hold with the traditional Yuletide attitudes.
For my contemporaries and me, Christmas was a time of blind obedience. We KNEW Santa had us under round-the-clock surveillance so there were NO shenanigans, NO horseplay, and absolutely NO monkeyshines.
This forced good behavior often resulted in this scenario: moms bustling around downtown Ironton and – since this was decades before fathers were actually involved in child-rearing – we were always in tow.
We quietly followed her into Gablers. Soundlessly accompanied her into Kresge’s.
When she went into Unger’s Shoes, we trailed along in silence. All because Kris Kringle had his eye on us… ALL of us.
The only oasis was “Toyland.”
From the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve it was known as Toyland…the other 48 weeks of the year it was known as the third floor of J.C. Penney’s. Our mothers would turn us loose and we would rush to Toyland with its hard wood floors and all…those…toys. They had them up on these tables, which meant little folks like us had to gaze up at the toys with awe and wonder.
After a few minutes of wordless perusal, we would begin to offer up our opinions on the shiny wonders before us.
One particular holiday season at J.C. Penney’s, our moms were downstairs talking about the Dinah Shore Show or those new-fangled color television sets or the Hecla Street Burglar (a heartless brigand who had been breaking into homes on Hecla Street and stealing Christmas presents) while we were on the third floor discussing MUCH more important topics:
“Did you see that Foto Electric Football Game? It’s just like playing football…for real!”
“Chatty Cathy says ELEVEN different things! My little sister doesn’t even say eleven things.”
“They call them Creepy Crawlers! You can make your own fake bugs!!”
And of course, all of us speculated on whether or not we had been good enough for Santa to bring us what we wanted.
When it came to Santa Claus, Spud Rimshot approached things from a different perspective. Where the rest of us regarded Jolly Ole St. Nicholas with a feeling of adoration and wonder, Spud was more paranoid.
“He’s watchin’ everything we do? EVERYTHING?” Spud asked me in the playground of Whitwell Elementary. “What about when we use the can? That’s just creepy!”
So while most of the children of Ironton were spending their Christmas Eves preparing the house for Santa’s visit with stockings on the fireplace, adorably scribbled notes, and cookies and milk, Spud was decidedly more…predatory.
“I figure if I can actually capture the guy, I’ll be able to demand all the toys I want,” he said, as we walked the aisles of Iron City Hardware. It was there that Spud purchased the materials for his traps: sturdy lengths of rope and extra-large burlap sacks big enough to accommodate “the husky man.” He paid for it with the cash he had swiped from the church collection plate.
Admittedly, Spud was not much of a church-goer, but he had recently gone with me and was amazed: “If I’d known they passed around dishes full of free money i woulda started goin’ a long time ago!”
Later that day, while he was scouting his home for spots to place his different snares and deadfalls, he made a shocking discovery. Hidden on a self, in a distant corner of a utility room Spud rarely frequented (filled as it was with mops, brooms and other cleaning items that he had no use for), he discovered a pile of colorfully-wrapped gifts. He, of course, jumped to the obvious conclusion…
He grabbed the phone, called the police and said: “I think my Pop is the Hecla Street Burglar! I found hard evidence!”
As the police wear hauling his dad away in handcuffs, Spud comforted his mother: “It’s better this way, Ma. And I think there’s a reward.”
There wasn’t. And Spud’s dad was eventually released because, ironically, the infamous Hecla Street burglaries were the only major crimes in Ironton that he had NOT committed.
I never found out what Spud’s dad did to him when he got home. All Spud told me was: “If Santa was watchin’ my old man that night, then Pop ain’t gettin’ nothin’ for the next 20 Christmases!”
