Post by Jolly on Dec 19, 2019 2:03:18 GMT
One I wrote for TNCR in 2011. Sadly, we closed the hospital in 2014, so our little tradition came to an end. But we had a few good years...
Lots of good things happen around Christmas. One of my stories I haven't told...
Ray lives a couple of miles down the road from me. He's a typical good ol' boy with a couple of science degrees...but just because you can take the boy out of the woods, you can't take the woods out of the boy. He's a Levis and Justins guy, complete with the Skoal ring on the jeans. He's big, he's tall and he'd probably whip your butt on less ground than you can stand on, given much of any provocation.
Lee works at a another hospital in the same town where I work. His wife has long been active in collecting and distributing Christmas toys for disadvantaged (read poor) kids. She is an amazing and tireless organizer and logistician. If Santa has any trouble, he might just want to hire this woman. As typical in marriages, Lee is so laid back, he's horizontal, while his wife has the temperment of a Jack Russell.
A few years ago, I received a call at work from Lee. His wife was doing her usual annual thing, and he wanted to organize a little contest between all of us floor moppers. Never one to turn down a challenge, my shop started to collect toys for Lee's wife. We didn't collect the most toys, but I thought we made a pretty fair showing. Come Christmas Eve, we took our list of families, checked to make sure we had everything tagged properly and piled the toys in the back of Ray's pickup. We tarped over the load, because it was looking a bit like rain, maybe mixed with some sleet.
So here we go...Ray's Victory Red Z71 Chevy leading the way. We even talked Ray into wearing a Santa Claus suit and he made a good-lookin' Santa...all of 6' 3" in his black Justin cowboy boots.
Ray checked the directions and drove out of town a few miles, eventually locking in the AWD to negotiate a dirt road and finally pulling up to an old, ratty trailer. The water and mud that had splashed over the pickup's exhaust turned into steam, framing the truck in the glare of our truck's lights. As little stair-step Mexican kids poured out of that sardine-can trailer into the rain and sleet, Santa stepped down out of that red chevy, wreathed in white smoke and doing his best "Ho, ho, ho!".
The smallest child, a little bare-foot girl in a stained and mended dress, ran up to Ray and threw her arms around him. Her head didn't even reach up to his belt buckle.
She looked up at him with shining, muscadine eyes and exclaimed, "You ARE real! You are!".
We didn't have the heart to laugh at ol' Ray, when the first words out of Santa's mouth, were "Sorry, darlin'. Santa's got to go pee". And he stomped off behind the trailer and soaked his beard with tears.
It was the best gift Ray had ever received.
The red pickup is gone, now. Years pass, machines wear out, and a white Z71 has taken its place. But today, a certain rough and burley, big redneck will drag his Santa suit out of his wife's hope chest and a cadre of hospital elves will help him make his appointed rounds.
Hope he took his flomax this time...
Lots of good things happen around Christmas. One of my stories I haven't told...
Ray lives a couple of miles down the road from me. He's a typical good ol' boy with a couple of science degrees...but just because you can take the boy out of the woods, you can't take the woods out of the boy. He's a Levis and Justins guy, complete with the Skoal ring on the jeans. He's big, he's tall and he'd probably whip your butt on less ground than you can stand on, given much of any provocation.
Lee works at a another hospital in the same town where I work. His wife has long been active in collecting and distributing Christmas toys for disadvantaged (read poor) kids. She is an amazing and tireless organizer and logistician. If Santa has any trouble, he might just want to hire this woman. As typical in marriages, Lee is so laid back, he's horizontal, while his wife has the temperment of a Jack Russell.
A few years ago, I received a call at work from Lee. His wife was doing her usual annual thing, and he wanted to organize a little contest between all of us floor moppers. Never one to turn down a challenge, my shop started to collect toys for Lee's wife. We didn't collect the most toys, but I thought we made a pretty fair showing. Come Christmas Eve, we took our list of families, checked to make sure we had everything tagged properly and piled the toys in the back of Ray's pickup. We tarped over the load, because it was looking a bit like rain, maybe mixed with some sleet.
So here we go...Ray's Victory Red Z71 Chevy leading the way. We even talked Ray into wearing a Santa Claus suit and he made a good-lookin' Santa...all of 6' 3" in his black Justin cowboy boots.
Ray checked the directions and drove out of town a few miles, eventually locking in the AWD to negotiate a dirt road and finally pulling up to an old, ratty trailer. The water and mud that had splashed over the pickup's exhaust turned into steam, framing the truck in the glare of our truck's lights. As little stair-step Mexican kids poured out of that sardine-can trailer into the rain and sleet, Santa stepped down out of that red chevy, wreathed in white smoke and doing his best "Ho, ho, ho!".
The smallest child, a little bare-foot girl in a stained and mended dress, ran up to Ray and threw her arms around him. Her head didn't even reach up to his belt buckle.
She looked up at him with shining, muscadine eyes and exclaimed, "You ARE real! You are!".
We didn't have the heart to laugh at ol' Ray, when the first words out of Santa's mouth, were "Sorry, darlin'. Santa's got to go pee". And he stomped off behind the trailer and soaked his beard with tears.
It was the best gift Ray had ever received.
The red pickup is gone, now. Years pass, machines wear out, and a white Z71 has taken its place. But today, a certain rough and burley, big redneck will drag his Santa suit out of his wife's hope chest and a cadre of hospital elves will help him make his appointed rounds.
Hope he took his flomax this time...