Ho, Ho, Ho

I've heard it bruited (look it up) about that the Rude Pundit recently wrote a thing about the time he was a mall Santa.

Cool, cool.

But does he have photographic evidence of himself wearing the red and white?  Because I do.  

That picture above?  That's me circa 1977 or 1978, when I worked in the stockroom of the Sears store in Park Forest, which was an objectively awesome job.  

The store is long gone, as is the building.  This building.

The basement beneath the building where I worked is also gone.  

The entire Park Forest Plaza it anchored has been virtually abandoned and then feebly revived a few times. 

The  indoor mall that killed it -- the Lincoln Mall -- has itself been killed by online sales and abandoned.

But the photograph of me wearing the suit remains.

The regular Santa guy had failed to show.  Drunk, probably, and they needed someone in a hurry to put on the suit, sit in the chair and chat with the kids while the mothers of Park Forest photographed Old St. Nick dandling their little ones on his knee.   

Physically, I made a terrible Santa.  By that age I had hit my full height.  6' 8".  I was rail-thin -- weighted maybe 130 pounds soaking wet.  Bony knees.  So not exactly...

He had a broad face and a little round belly,

that shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf...

But the kids didn't care.  And my boss John -- who was an excellent boss -- just needed someone in a hurry who could sit for a few hours and not scare the kids, and why the hell not? The beard and wig were old-polyester itchy and the suit smelled ancient, but again, why the hell not?  It helped John out of a jam, and I got to be part of that merry little seasonal conspiracy between parents and department stores.  All in all, an easy gig.

My mom got wind of what I was up to and came by to take that picture of me.  Bless her heart for hanging onto it and eventually passing it along to me.  Which, in the fullness of time, allowed me to say this: "Check and mate, Rude Pundit!"

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