Attribution: John Malmin, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
.jpg){kind=link}
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper doing a dive into Christmases past, WAY past when he was a State Journal staffer back in the ‘60’s and city editor Glen Miller ordered him to come up with an annual Christmas story to entertain the readers.
The result is a long list of weird–some might even say “outrageous” schemes in which the keeper dressed as Santa and reported his experiences as a department store Santa, a lost Santa, a window peeking Santa, a hitch-hiking Santa, a bell-ringing Santa on Capitol Square and more.
These Santa assignments were always interesting and fun, even when somebody called the police on the window peeking Santa. And then there was the fun of using his bell-ringing Santa identity to stop unsuspecting friend Jim Wimer on the Square and make a crowd-gathering show of demanding that Jim empty his pockets and wallet into the little red Salvation Army bucket.
If Phyllis sometimes wonders why the Keeper laughs for no apparent reason, it is because he has gone back to a long ago Christmas and is either being questioned by the police or remembering the look on Jim Wimmer’s face as Santa more or less robbed him on Capitol Square.
