THE DISCOVERY

I was never comfortable with our basement on Oak Street.  Well, that's a lie.  I was scared to death of our basement on Oak Street. For starters, it was dark.  The steps down to the basement itself were creepy enough--open treads--then at the bottom, only a dim single light bulb let you know you had landed safely.  The rest of that cold concrete cavern was in shadow. Deep and dark shadow.

As far as I can tell, our basement was the exact size of our house, with the exception of our side-porch which had been my all time favorite place (well, one of them, anyway) until it was ripped off, and our living room expanded into that area.  If I moved back to Dodge City and bought that house, I would take a chain-saw to the east end of the living room and rebuild that little porch and reconstruct the two elegant doors that used to open onto it from the house.  It was shaded by trellises covered in ivy, and was nearly as magic as under the piano and halfway up the stairs.

I digress.  Back to the basement. I was the only person in our house bothered by this, but you should know that our basement was pretty heavily populated by creatures of all shapes and sizes--each one scarier than the one before.  There was no part of it that was completely safe. Even if you stood under a light bulb, you could sense they were watching from the shadows...first one creeping closer, then another...I can't make it scary enough for you to understand, but think about hair standing up, and chills crawling down your spine.  Although, if two or more people were in the basement at the same time, it became a friendlier place.  A less scary place.  A brave place, even. But not if you were alone.

Which is why the story I'm about to share is a little confusing, even for me.  It begins in the basement, and I was by myself.  Why?  I have no idea.  Maybe I was bored, or on a hunting mission for some lost treasure, or (surely not) just snooping around.  I was in Mother's little area--her makeshift utility room where she sewed and ironed, and where the washer and dryer were.  There was also a set of cabinets that came from the original kitchen, but they were against a wall--far enough from the light bulb that I wouldn't go over there, even on a bet.  No, I was carefully going through a chest of drawers that stood at the edge of her little space.

Top drawer:  Needles, pins, thread (surely every color that ever was), measuring tape (I loved to measure things), scissors of all shapes and sizes.  I moved on--drawer by drawer.  Mom sewed a lot in those years--nearly everything I wore--and she saved the little bits and pieces of fabric when she finished a project.  I've reached the bottom drawer now, and I'm on my knees--the better to dig right in.

Looks like more fabric scraps...Ooh, this is nice.  It's shiny and kind of lavender in color and slick-feeling. Just under that is a soft flannel material with a teeny-tiny print.  I picked up some pink flannel and quickly reached for a heavier yellow fabric. When I saw the organdy...I just sat down. Hard. Sat down right on that cold and dusty concrete floor. Sat down where any spider nearby could creep up and take a hunk out of my bottom, leaving deadly poison to finish me off.  I was in a state of shock. Gobsmacked. The fabrics in my hand matched the Toni Doll wardrobe that Mrs. Santa Claus had made for her last Christmas. The lavender skating dress with the silver trim. The flannel print pajamas and the pink flannel robe.  The yellow hat and coat.  The green organdy Church dress.  It was all here.  Every scrap.

I know! Mrs. Santa Claus left it at our house just in case something got ripped or torn and needed to be repaired.  Or, she might have it...umm, no.  Or, maybe we just had those fabrics... or not.  Way too fast, I ran out of reasons for that exceptional coincidence of matching fabrics. Way too fast.

I think, at this point I was a fourth grader. It's not that I hadn't heard stories that Santa Claus wasn't real, but I didn't believe any of them.  When I asked my Mother if there really was a Santa Claus, she always answered, "Of course there is."  But the rumors and stories at school were getting harder and harder to deny.  I stayed firm, though.  I was a believer.  Santa Claus was real. Mrs. Santa Claus was real. She had made the clothes for my beautiful dark-haired Toni Doll...the same Toni Doll her husband had delivered to our house the year before the wardrobe arrived.

I'm sure I didn't hold on to this terrible discovery for very long.  My nature was to yell quickly and loudly.  Once I had figured out a story as to why I was digging through that chest of drawers, I was on my way to find my Mother.  My poor Mother...

I don't remember the conversation.  I remember worrying about being in that chest of drawers, but once I confessed I had found the fabric and asked again if Santa was real, I go blank.  I don't remember how my Mother handled it.

As you know, I was the youngest in our family, and maybe Mother and Daddy did want to hold on to Christmas as long as they could.  My sister had kept her mouth shut--had never breathed a word about Santa which, when you think about it, was pretty exceptional.  It makes me wish I'd been a bit nicer to her.

Since I'm writing this for you and not myself, I'm really sorry that I have suppressed the actual conversation on the reality of Santa Claus.  But, maybe, it's better this way.  I'm sure I processed the information, mourned a bit, and then moved on with life.  But, without Santa Claus, or small children who believe in Santa Claus, Christmas is never Christmas again.

PS:  In June of 2015, when Dr. C. and I were driving through New England, we stopped at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to visit Norman Rockwell's museum.  I'd grown up with "The Saturday Evening Post" and its occasional Rockwell covers.  His was a great and honest vision of our world.

As you've learned, visiting a museum with Dr. C. is not a hurried occasion, so we wandered and studied every painting, print and lithograph.  I think we were in a large room on the lower level of the building when I spotted a painting that Rockwell labeled "The Discovery."  And there in the middle of that painting, in all of his shock and horror stands a young boy--maybe six or seven years old--in front of a large brown chest of drawers, bottom drawer askew and spilling Santa's whiskers and bright red suit out onto the floor.

I stood there a long time, feeling the chill of that basement floor so many years ago. And, I knew exactly..exactly how that shocked little boy was feeling.