by David R. Jarrott, broadcast personality, actor, producer, director
(I asked David R. Jarrott for a Christmas memory. He sent me this tale from his boyhood. –Forrest Preece.)
My best Christmases were always spent in San Marcos at my Great-Aunt Margaret and Great-Uncle Ross’s house on Loop Drive in San Marcos. In the mid-1950s, they tore down an original cabin and built a mid-century modern house up on the hill, and it had a beautiful view of the hill country and, to the east, the campus of what was then Southwest Texas State Teachers College. Aunt Margaret loved to decorate for Christmas, and she usually had a small pink flocked tree on a side table near the front door. That door led to a spacious front terrace and out to a beautifully landscaped lawn with a large oak tree and a bird bath, which is now in my backyard.
But I digress. The only time I ever got in an actual fight with someone (at least one where I threw the first punch) was when I was in the fourth grade, in the fall of ‘53. I was eight (about to turn nine in December). We were lined up to go into the cafeteria at the Cambridge Elementary School in Alamo Heights when some obnoxious bully started spouting off about there not being a Santa Claus. (Yes, I was still a believer. Still am.) This was much too near Christmas for him to be spreading such heresy. Teachers intervened; I was disciplined; and we had fish sticks. (It was a Friday.)
Flash forward to Christmas, 1953. It was a typical Texas Christmas, cold-ish but not freezing. There was a heavy fog up on the hill on Loop Drive in San Marcos and you couldn’t really see out the living room windows.
There was a large bow attached to the pink flocked tree and the ribbon extended through the door jamb to the outside terrace. My name was on the ribbon. And so were the words “Enjoy! Love, Santa.” My heart racing, I opened the door and followed the ribbon to find a brand new, shiny red, three-speed bicycle! Oh my joy! This was the greatest Christmas ever!
All Christmas morning I rode around the large driveway area on the top of the hill on Loop Drive in San Marcos. The fog had lifted. The sun was shining. And then. The tires went flat.
I wheeled the brand new, shiny red, three-speed bicycle over to my father and my Uncle Ross. As I was slouching back to the front door of the house, I overheard them talking. And there was something about “Well, the tires looked fine last night.” What?
Was it my best Christmas ever? Honestly? Yes. And no. It was the Christmas that, albeit belatedly perhaps, jump-started my transition to an early adulthood. The Christmas that I started trusting adults less. But man—that was a great brand-new, shiny red, three-speed bike.
PS: I never apologized to that classmate that I tried to beat up in the lunch line.