Yes, Norman...there really is a Santa Claus

Historians tell us the decade of the 1930s was not an easy time. They talk of the Great Depression, stock market crash, bank failures, massive unemployment and bread lines. Somehow this was mostly hidden from a boy growing up in those years. We were not rich but didn't feel poor. My father always had a job even if it was only digging graves in the Wauwautosa cemetery. My friends seemed to be in the same situation so it was not something we thought of often.

At Christmas we knew, however, that we would always get clothes and one or two "real" gifts. That didn't stop us from dreaming and wishing. Santa Claus was a very real figure to me, fostered in great part by a radio program I think named "Billie the Brownie". The half hour program was on WTMJ (the WCCO of Milwaukee) from 5:00-5:30 p.m. each night my sister, Lois, and I would sit in the kitchen and listen to our white Zenith radio. This was important stuff. Billie (or Billy) must have been one of Santa's elves. He had a high, piercing voice and talked very fast. There were other people on the program since they read real live letters to Santa Claus on the air. I am not sure but would guess I sent Billie a letter each year. I know mine never got read. Maybe it was my handwriting, although I would have printed something that important.

The program began sometime after Thanksgiving and finished the night of December 24th. Toward the end of the program, they would contact Santa Claus at the North Pole. At first we would hear Santa talking of the hustle and bustle of getting ready to leave the North Pole. Later, about seven days before Christmas, we would hear Santa leave the North Pole. There were stamping reindeer, bells jingling, wind howling and Santa ho-ho-hoing through it all. The next week took forever. I think we knew Santa was flying but never questioned why it took so long. Each night they would attempt to contact Santa by wireless. The radio would crackle with static and Santa's voice would get louder and then fade. He always ran into a terrible storm and at least one night they couldn't contact him at all. I could visualize him forced down on a snow-covered mountain and not getting to 2521 Wauwautosa Avenue at all.

He always made it through. Never missed once. Although he may have been a little late a few times. Not too late since we had to eat supper, open presents and be in church in what seemed like an hour. Dad would always leave the supper table for a short time because he thought he heard something on the front porch. "Nobody there," he would say. But when we finished supper and went into the living room, the presents were sitting around the tree. Good old Santa had made it again.

Now that Santa was real to me. There were other Santas. Some were in front of stores standing next to a red pot and they were ringing a hand bell. They really weren't Santa. Inside Gimbels and Boston Store were other Santas sitting on thrones. I guessed they weren't real either since the real Santa Claus was still a zillion miles away on WTMJ. I was a little confused, however, when at least once a year they ushered the entire Roosevelt School, grades kindergarten to sixth, outside to see Santa and eight real, live reindeer hooked up to a full-sized white sleigh, all on top of a flatbed pulled by a semi-truck.

The real Santa from WTMJ reappeared, however, at Grandma Fenske's house after church. All the cousins would be there and we would be put in the living room, with parents standing in the doorways and behind chairs. Suddenly there would be a commotion in the kitchen, the glimpse of red, the sound of bells, and then Santa Claus was there with a big white bag of toys. He knew us by name and I can remember helping him hold the bag open as he distributed the gifts. Mine was usually a Hardy Boys book. I remember being so close I could see he was sweating, but hey, that's hard work distributing gifts to every kid in the world in one night.

I don't know when the doubts began, but I do remember that Christmas Eve, just before Santa came in, when one of my cousins said, "That's not Santa, that's Uncle Walter." And when he came in the door I could see Uncle Walter, and hear Uncle Walter and couldn't see or hear Santa Clause again, no matter how hard I tried.

The next year, I don't believe I listened to Billie the Brownie at all.