Merry Christmas

I just came from the Alzheimer’s offices. Its still October and 70 degrees outside. Yet my assignment was to write a blog about Christmas, but not the usual “folderol”.

The disease, Alzheimer’s, has been around year after year for more than 100 years. But ole friend Santa has been coming year after year for more years than Alzheimer’s. I have Alzheimer’s. Looking forward to Santa’s visit year after year never gets old. I’m 89 going on 90. I’ve seen good years and some not so great.

I still remember the stock market crash of 1929. I was 10 years old. Prior to the crash, Dad was Secretary-Treasurer of the Ford Motor Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After the crash he was unemployed for years. So was my mother.

Just before the 1929 depression I can recall the Christmas of 1926. It was a special Christmas to a lad of seven. I had asked Santa for a tool box, not the flimsy cardboard kind that little kids get, but the big “boxy” kind. A big one that would hold a hand saw, hammers, screw drivers and all kinds of stuff. You know the kind of tools a seven year old would need to build a dog house for my fox terrier friend “Pepper”. Pepper came as a puppy on my birthday in August of 1926. From August to December I kept bugging Dad for a tool box. Looking and looking. Hoping and hoping.

Early in December 1926 a letter came from the North Pole. It was addressed to my Dad “to the attention of John Childs”. I guess Santa thought a seven year old could not read, but I could. I was in the third grade at Sigsbee Street School. I was big enough to ride my bicycle to and from school crossing several busy streets all by myself!

Here’s the typed letter Santa wrote to Dad:

Dear Mr. Childs,

Your son John wants a tool chest for Christmas. I have looked all through my toys and I find, the tool chests which I have are all made for very small boys, and they would not do at all for him. I haven’t time to make one strong enough for him this year, and I thought that maybe you could help me out.

Why don’t you buy the lumber and nails and paint and make the chest yourself. Then if John is a very good boy, I may get him some tools to fit the chest. I am not really sure that I will bring his tools, because some boys are careless when they get tools and cut and pound things that they should not and also cut their hands. Anyway I am sure that John will be good enough so that I can bring him something.

You think it over about making the tool chest.

Merry Christmas,

Santa Claus (signed)

And sure enough Santa visited 605 Giddings Avenue, Grand Rapids, Michigan that 1926 year. I’ve seen a lot of Christmases since then, but that one still stays in my memory bank. On that Christmas morning, I even received a note from Santa. He wrote the following:
(hand written note)

Dear John,

I like your tool chest. I hope you will take good care of it and your tools. Don’t pound or cut anything you should not.

Lots of Love,

Santa Claus

And I wrote this note to my (Santa) Dad:
(hand written note - 12/25/26)

Daddy Dear

I love you. Thank you for making my tool chest. Merry Christmas.

John T. Childs

In reality that tool chest is a nice piece of furniture. It is 36” long x 20” high and 18” deep. It was painted red. Today the red has turned brownish. It is a coveted piece of furniture in our den. It has a special place at the end of our sofa and has been a conversation piece ever since its birth in 1926.

Lifting up the cover, I can show visitors the letters I wrote to Santa and his reply. They are pasted inside the cover and have turned yellow with age - 82 years old.

Each year we look forward to Christmas . . . .

And each year we look forward . . . . . . to a cure for Alzheimer’s.

Merry Christmas.

This blog was written by a man diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He will be 90 in ‘09.