[Hallicrafters] Some Santa Sleigh Tracks And North Pole Radio Waves

[Duane Fischer, W8DBF]

Happy Holidays to one and all. Keep that apple cider stirring, those fresh 
pies from burning, the goose feather free and the potatoes mashed and lump 
free. Enjoy the love, family and friends. One never knows if the Sun will 
rise come tomorrow!

Here is a mix of verse and humor I penned over the years. I truly hope that 
you enjoy it. If not, do not complain, take some extra stewed prunes! You 
did not pay for it, so smile and swipe someone's slice of pie when their 
eyes are looking in a direction other than yours!

                The Magic Of A Christmas Snow


                                         By Duane B. Fischer


Our childhood years too quickly pass,
Like sand slips through an hour glass.
The magic snow on Christmas morn,
And stories of the babe that's born.

A fragrant pine with lights aglow,
With balls and tinsel hung just so.
A snowball missile on a flight,
And carolers singing through the night.

Last minute sales on Christmas Eve,
The tired clerks wish you would leave.
A frosty snowman dressed in white,
And presents hiding in the night.

Greeting cards from friends afar,
And home made jelly in a jar.
Nine reindeer on a neighbor's house,
And Grandma sews a Christmas mouse.

The smell of turkey fills the air,
There's pumpkin pie for all to share.
The family gathers, young and old,
To listened to the stories told.

The children stare at wondrous sights,
And parents break up sibling fights.
The stockings hung, fresh cookies baked,
And Santa knows when sleep is faked!

Some how the world just seemed renewed,
Or was it just my youth that viewed?
It really was a special day,
But did it have to go away?

Adulthood comes and childhood goes,
Spring takes away the winter snows.
As years advance and youth recedes,
Our vision looks to different needs.

There is one thing for sure I know,
That winter winds will always blow
Some magic into Christmas snow.


Original: February 1, 1992 Revised on January 29, 2004


        Why Rudolph's Nose Never Needs A Bulb Change!


                                        By, Duane B. Fischer


     Now, practically everybody on the planet knows that
Rudolph's nose becomes a blinking beacon on Christmas Eve.
There are several movies describing it, a famous song by Gene
Autry about it and thousands of UFO sighting reports.  But
did you ever stop to wonder why that nose really glows?
After all, reindeer do not naturally have noses that light up
like a halogen headlight.  Was it Christmas magic?  Such as
that old straw hat that made Frosty come to life and dance
around like he had hot coals in his boxer shorts?  Was it
something like radioactive fallout in his north pole diet
that caused a mutant dormant genetic trait to become active?
Like when his great great uncle Spike ate so many fireflies
during the drought of 425 AD, that his droppings glowed like
volcanic rivers of lava.  Or had this reindeer harnessed some
form of psychic energy that allowed him to project high
intensity light at will?  Well, in an effort to answer this
seasonal mystery, I dug deep back into my childhood archives
of Christmas memorabilia, hoping to find a previously
undiscovered clue.

     I read every children's book on Christmas that I could
bribe the librarian into letting me check out.  She got
suspicious of my motives after about the fifteenth book I
wandered up to her desk with.  She was a tough old bird, like
an over baked turkey you had to eat for Christmas dinner, so
as not to upset Aunt Zelda.  She slid her trifocals down on
the bridge of her beak like nose, puckered up her mouth like
she just sucked on an alum stick and snuffled up some post
nasal drip.  The way she looked at me, I thought maybe my fly
was at half mast.  "What are you?", she said with a voice as
cold as the gravy when it finally gets to your end of the
table.  "Some sort of weirdo who did too many drugs and are
now looking for the first names of those sugar plums you saw
dancing in your head?"  I explained to her, that I was just
doing research on what it was that caused Rudolph The Red
Nosed Reindeer's nose to glow.  She carefully looked over the
stack of books I had on the counter to check out.  "these are
all children's Christmas books mister, not something I care
to loan to a middle aged man with an obvious obsession with
reindeer.  Forget it!"  Before I could get my wallet out to
offer her a return deposit, a security guard showed up,
pointed me at the exit sign and suggested I go to the
Salvation Army homeless shelter and ask for a hot shower and
a warm meal.  I shoved my library card in his open mouth,
stuck my chewing gum on the old prude's beak and went home.

     I was sitting there at my computer sipping some brandy
flavored hot chocolate listening to the umpteenth humorous
variation on the Twelve Days Of Christmas, when the doorbell
rang.  It was my old ham radio buddy, Zenier Smith.  Nobody
knew just how old Zenier was, but he vividly recalled the day
when Thomas Edison announced that his new invention, the
diamond reproducer phonograph, was going to be sold
exclusively at K-Mart.  He was listening on a home brew radio
he had built, when KDKA, the first commercial radio station,
broadcast its first words from Pittsburgh, PA.  He was a
walking encyclopedia of bits and pieces of historical
information that nobody else remembered, or wanted to
remember!

     When I mentioned I was wondering why rudolph had a nose
that glowed, old Zenier's eyes lit up like flash bulbs
popping at a swim suit competition!  "Got any more of that
hot chocolate around you could add a couple of shots of rum
to?  Let me use your computer to check something remotely on
my data base while you get it." He gently pushed me off my
solid maple bar stool computer chair and began typing like an
over caffeinated secretary with a deadline to meet.

     "Now when Rudolph was very little.", Zenier began, "His
father took him on a hiking expedition to find one of Santa's
mail bags.  The post office did not have a valid delivery
address, with nine digit zip code, for the North Pole.  They
thought Santa was just someone created by advertisers to get
parents to buy toys to shut up the nagging children.  So they
had a small plane fly over the magnetic pole and randomly
shove the mail sacks out whenever the pilot felt so inclined.
If all of the sacks did not get found each year, Santa got
really upset because he missed a child's letter.  The only
thing that upset Santa more, was when the EPA banned one of
his new toy designs on Christmas eve after it had been loaded
onto the sleigh!

     "Little rudolph was prancing along through the fresh
fallen snow sniffing for the mail sack.  All of a sudden he
let out a scream that even the old north wind paused for a
few seconds to listen to.  His father came dashing up beside
him to see what was wrong.  Rudolph was rolling in the snow
with both hoofs over his nose.  There was this shimmering red
liquid all over the snow and all over little Rudolph's nose.
His father tried and tried to wipe it off, but it would not
budge.  He pawed through the snow looking for the source of
this mysterious red stuff.  His hoof hit something and he
picked it up.  It was some sort of luminescent glow in the
dark paint used by the military to make meter dials and
instruments visible in the dark.  His father scrubbed the
little reindeer's nose time and time again with snow, but
that stuff was not coming off.  So home they trudged through
the swirling snow and darkening skies.  His father watched in
disbelief, as little rudolph pranced along illuminating the
way like a lighthouse beacon guiding ships through a foggy
channel.  But when Rudolph shot a beam of light at a big
icicle, sheared it off and nibbled it, his father nearly had
to change his reindeer briefs!  How embarrassing!  Next the
elves would want to make a reindeer pull toy with a blinking
red beacon for a snoz!"

     "North Pole history documents the historic night when
Rudolph, the odd reindeer who was ostracized and not allowed
to play in reindeer games, saved Santa's bacon.  However, I
thought you might enjoy hearing about several incidents
leading up to this that made the ninth reindeer the most
famous reindeer of all."

     "Whenever Rudolph got emotional, his nose would start to
flash or blink or shine like a strobe light.  The intensity
of the light seemed to be determined by the strength of the
emotion.  If he got really excited or angry, it turned into a
beam of light with all the power of a Star Trek phaser.
Before the little reindeer learned how to control the power
of his enchanted nose, he got into quite a lot of mischief."

     "Once he had a nasty head cold, sneezed and accidentally
burnt the beard right off Santa!  Mrs. Claus laughed until
the tears streaming down her rosy cheeks froze into little
rivers of ice.  Poor Santa just stood there in shock as the
smoke from his vaporized chin whiskers curled upwards and
formed a wreath above his head.  Several elves laughed so
hard they wet themselves!  Santa felt his singed chin, looked
at the blackened hairs in the palm of his hand and his eyes
got as wide as the butt cheeks on a Rhino!  "Holy holly
berries!", he exclaimed.  "With a little training, the
reindeer could do some laser lyposuction and reduce the
waistlines of the calorically challenged here at the North
Pole!" He glanced at the hysterically chuckling elves.
"Hey!", he shouted with a roar that made that bowl full of
jelly shake like the hips of a go go dancer.  "Clean up that
floor!  You guys are disgusting!  Herbie?  You better
housebreak these two, now!  Or get one of those Barbi wets
herself diapers in place!"

     "Rudolph's father was so embarrassed, that he had one of
the elves in the metal shop make a flesh colored lead nose
for rudolph to wear.  In fact, the prototype of this nose was
in the original movie.  But the first time his little girl
deer friend, Cloriese, kissed him on the ear, it melted into
a large reindeer shaped lead fishing sinker!"

     "Then there was the time that Frosty The Snowman, and
his wife Crystal, came to visit Santa and Mrs. Claus.  They
were having dinner and playing Uno when somebody knocked on
the door.  One of the elves scurried over to see who it was.
It was Rudolph with a bag of frozen snow treats for Frosty.
He pranced over and set them down on Crystal's lap.  She
thanked him and Frosty patted Rudolph on the head and told
him what a nice little reindeer he was.  Rudolph was so
pleased that he just beamed with pride.  His nose twitched,
changed colors several times and shot out a bolt of energy
like a comet going across the room.  Poof!  Crystal melted
into a puddle leaving only her button nose and two eyes of
coal behind!"

     "Frosty jumped up, did several back flips, a couple of
those patented belly floppers he is famous for and nearly
impaled himself on the fireplace poker.  Santa got up,
scratched his head, muttered something about dandruff and
looked down at the puddle.  "Way to go Rudolph!  You just
turned Crystal from a snow woman into a steaming puddle of
what smells like sassafras tea! Guess I will skip the frozen
snowball dessert cake tonight.  Well Frosty, any suggestions?
You elves get some buckets, sop Crystal up and get her into
the deep freeze. And don't miss a drop, either!  We don't
want Crystal missing any body parts!"

     "Nobody will soon forget the reindeer olympics when the
North Pole reindeer took on the Arctic Circle musk oxen.
This was the big finale, the five hundred kilometer sleigh
run.  The first team over the frozen tundra arriving with the
runners on the sleigh still intact, was the winner.   The
North Pole reindeer were banned from flying to keep the
competition fair.  The sleighs were loaded with hot chocolate
spiked with nutritional grain supplements, dried beef jerky
sticks with a garlic dip, and a box of forty-eight Twinkees
for Donner, who would eat nothing else!  They were off at the
crack of dawn on December 22nd, the first official day of
Winter."

     "the musk oxen were plodding along on a steady pace
grinding out mile after treacherous mile through the blowing
snow and sub zero conditions.  The reindeer kept their
harness lines taught and made their way toward Santa's
village with their sure footed determination.  Day turned
into night and night turned into day.  Well, not really, as
it was night for six months each year at the North Pole!  The
musk oxen kept their heads low and pushed on through the
frigid conditions, never pausing to rest.  The reindeer were
nearing exhaustion as the musk oxen passed them by and kept
on going.  Cupit watched them disappear into a cloud of
swirling snow in the distance.  "This is a crock of frozen
cow pies!", he exclaimed with obvious frustration.  "Santa is
counting on us to win this race.  We just can't let that old
fat jolly senior elf down!  We need a plan, and fast!"  They
huddled together and exchanged ideas while sipping the hot
chocolate.  All of a sudden, Blitzen got a glint in his eyes
and whispered something to Prancer."

     "They were back in formation pushing forward when all of
a sudden, Dancer, the lead reindeer, let out a roar and took
off like a cat somebody had tied a skyrocket to the tail of.
The sleigh was bounding along over the icy tundra leaving a
rooster snow tail behind it.  Before long the musk oxen and
their sleigh came into sight.  Dancer let out another war
whoop and charged ahead.  The other reindeer were panting for
breath as they raced like an Indy sprint car toward the
finish line.  The musk oxen looked up in surprise as Dancer
and company went by them so fast they thought they heard a
sonic boom!"

     "The reindeer crossed the finish line to a cheering
throng of elves, pixies, gnomes, reindeer and Santa and Mrs.
Claus.  It took them nearly half a kilometer of hoof dragging
to get stopped.  Santa knew from the flying deershoe sparks
what had happened.  "Well Momma, guess I better get the burn
ointment out for old Dancer.  Looks like Rudolph has goosed
him with a red hot nose again!"

     "Mrs. Claus was just taking her zillionth batch of Santa
shaped cookies out of the oven when Santa came in.  "How's
Dancer?", she asked curiously.  "Oh he's fine.  Just won't be
able to sit down for a few days."  Santa waddled over to his
favorite over stuffed chair.  "I was watching one of those
research helicopters flying over the North Pole on its way to
the base in the Arctic Circle.  Reminded me of the time young
Rudolph was practicing flying and spotted those Russian jets
doing military maneuvers.  The look on that pilot's face when
he looked out and saw a reindeer flying beside him was
priceless!  Too bad the Russians burned the photos.  I heard
him radioing the ufo report into Moscow on my shortwave
receiver.  I remember him saying over and over,, that it
looked like a reindeer, not a flying saucer! I think they put
him in a mental institution in Siberia. Hey!  These cookies
are good!"

     "Santa!", Mrs. Claus exclaimed reproachfully, "You stop
biting the ears off the reindeer!" Santa just smiled.  "Ah
Momma, you know they taste better that way.  Remember the
year when we had no wood for your cast iron oven, so you had
rudolph heat your oven with his nose?" "How could I forget
it, Santa.  Every time he burped, I had another five dozen
Christmas tree shaped cookies that looked like forest fire
survivors with frost degree burns!"

     Santa was just stuffing the last of his fifty-eighth
Claus Apple Dumpling Crumb Cake cookie into his mouth when
that memory of Mrs. Claus whacking poor Rudolph between the
antler buds with her gigantic no stick cookie spatula,
flashed across his neuron paths like one of those Japanese
high speed commuter trains.  He snorted and accidentally blew
a cloud of cookie crumbs aloft that just sort of hung there
in space as if suspended by those wire tree ornament hangers.
Mrs.  Claus caught a glimpse of something out of the corner
of her left eye and paused to look. Before she could scoop
that cookie crumb cloud out of the air with her beautifully
decorated official North Pole cookie baking apron, something
flashed across the room engulfing the little crumb cloud and
snatching the fifty-ninth cookie right out of old Santa's
hand! "Great galloping Goat galoshes!", Santa roared with a
start.  "What the heck was that?" Mrs. Claus sauntered over
to Santa.  "That, you chubby old Elf.", she said with a
smirk. "Was little Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer discovering
his hormones. He's hit puberty Santa and I've got a feeling
that Christmas will never be quite the same again here at the
Santa Claus Snow Palace, Icicles R Slush Jack Frost
Meteorological Center or the Elfin Toy Engineering and
Prototype Snowtrack Test Track." Santa just smiled that
ageless omniscient patented smile of his that has lit up more
homes than all the street lights in the world times ten.
"Better get off a quick memo to the Reindeer community Momma,
I think the stock on chastity belts for reindeer is about to
soar!  I've got a feeling there are going to be many more
little blinking baby beacons in our future! Not a bad thing
though. As when those glowing growing Reindeer sleep standing
up in a loving child's bedroom they make very attractive
nightlights that do not require life support from the utility
company wall outlet or Lithium Firefly hyde batteries! Less
tongue flung dung in the landfills!  Speaking of being full
of shit Momma, who ever thought the planet Earth would be a
repository for what NASA should have shot into the Sun's
Chronosphere and vaporized?" Mrs.  Claus gave old Santa a
half reproachful and half amused look and sighed.  "Well you
infamous chubby old Elf, those cute little Reindeer also
leave a glow in the dark trail that a nearly blind Easter
rabbit could follow. So before you let Rudolph con you into
using them as panty hose stuffers, you better figure out a
way to allow the nose to glow and the incriminating trail
from under the tail to point at a route to the Great
Pumpkin! The last thing we need around here are a sleigh load
or six of those UFOlogists searching for Mr. Spock with his
glowing green ears!"


Original: December 25, 1998. Revised December 22, 2004



     It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Santa On A Handheld!


                                  By Duane B. Fischer, W8DBF



     "Yo fellow Hams, this is NP11RED calling CQ CQ CQ from
the North Pole. How copy?

     The WX here is colder than a Seal's rump after sitting
on the frozen pond just north of Santa's greenhouse having
used it to melt a hole in the ice to do some fishing! The
wind is howling louder than Mrs.  Claus pet Siberian
Cat, Snowball, after she got her twenty-eight inch tail
caught in the pretzel twisting machine! Her tail is a lot
shorter now that it looks like a sine wave! The snow is
falling faster than the share prices on the stock market did
when the wire services broke the story about Burger Kingdom
getting busted by the FDA for flame broiling their burgers
with military surplus jet turbine engines burning Kentucky
Moonshine! All this time you thought that odd taste to the
beef paddy was because of them using recycled catsup
recovered from the dumpster behind Windy's!

     It is just the perfect WX for Santa, my eight Reindeer
compatriots and I to hoof it up, up and away to deliver some
toys to good little girls and boys! In case you are living on
a desolate island with no calendar, it is Christmas Eve 2005!
Over. Over.  NP11RED standing by."

     "Herbie, Herbie NP11RED, this is NP22FTS. Q5 all the
way, full quieting, good copy OM. I'll be at Santa's QTH just
as soon as I finish running down the two teenage males I'm
thumpety thump thumping in pursuit of.  They tried to flatten
my XYL Crystal by running over her with one of those super
charged snowmobiles! Fortunately Jack Frost was nearby
programming his amphibious snow generator for the traditional
magical snow of Christmas eve and Christmas morn, saw them
and blew a blast of his icy breath underneath the driver's
punk rock putrid pink woven ski hat freezing both ears more
solid than a Fruitsicle that has spent too much time lying on
a block of frozen Carbon Dioxide, or dry ice. I think I can
break off pursuit now Rudolph, they are headed for the
Canadian Mounties horse barn manure pile! They won't be hard
to spot, since the one punk's ears both fell off and the
other punk picked them up and put them in his snowmobile suit
glove pocket!  Keep my seat cold NP11RED, NP22FTS clear and
thumping your way."

     "Herbie, Herbie NP22FTS, AKA North Pole #22 Frosty The
Snowman. Don't worry OM, after a visit to that manure pile
anyone with a working nose can track those  filament fried
punks direct to their QTH! I'm going to go QRT as it is time
for the Sunday December 25th HHI 20 meter Christmas Day pre-
Net at 12:45 PM EST, or 1745 UTC.  Remember Frosty, the Net
proper starts at 1:15 PM EST, or 1815 UTC. So QSY with VFO #1
to the Sleigh operating frequency and keep the dual watch on
and VFO #2 on 14.293 MHZ usb +/- for "key clicks, mike
splatter and the sound of ... That ain't frozen snowflakes
dancing on my roof! And Frosty, please to use the waterproof
digital pocket watch with the large number display that Santa
gave you, not your sun dial! Remember it is dark for six
months of the year here and the sun dial doesn't work with no
sunlight!"

     "Ya gotta love that mixed bag of partly crazy and partly
amazing blind dude that runs the HHI Nets!  NP11RED, AKA
North Pole #11 Rudolph Eliminates Doubters is clear and QSY.
73's all, and to all a good flight!"

     "Are you sure that one hundred and five microwaveable
cheeseburger deluxe with extra onions and dill pickles is
going to be enough Santa?" "Yes momma. Remember that those
people from that medical ship the USS Hope told me that if I
wanted to live another five hundred years I had to cut down
on the animal fats, increase my vegetable portions and double
my fiber intake?" Mrs. Claus smiled. "Since when did Santa
Claus start taking orders from anyone?" Santa grinned so wide
that he nearly split a lip! "Did you see that nurse, I think
she was the dietician?" Mrs. Claus set the bright red
Delicious apple she had been polishing with her apron down on
the cupboard. "See her? No. But the way you are smiling Santa
I'll bet she is the same one who is in that digital photo on
your desk that looks like the Playboy centerfold for
December!" Santa grinned that grin that would calm a volcano
about to belch molten lava and cremate a forest!  "Yep! But I
am taking her advice so I can keep all those perverted Elves
with a crush on you away for the next half of a century! Ho!
Ho! Ho!" "Really? Then get your hand out of that cookie jar
before I put some lumps on your head with this rolling pin!
Now get going and have a good flight.  Remember to stay
out of those no fly zones over the Middle East this year, ok?
I don't want you coming back with singed eyebrows and the
spare sleigh runner shot off by some heat seeking missile
this Christmas!"

     Santa kissed her, picked up the lunchbox and staggered
toward the door. "Are you using Texas Toast for
my burgers? This thing weighs a ton!" Mrs. Claus chuckled.
"Between the 105 burgers, ten pounds of assorted cookies, one
peck of Delicious apples, eight pounds each of carrot and
celery sticks with five pounds of bean dip with hot sauce,
twenty gallons of hot chocolate and the Lead lining the
picnic basket to keep it radiation proof, you can bet your
chubby buns it is heavy! You need the exercise Santa, so stop
grumbling and start gift giving!"

     So tune the Sleigh Net in tomorrow, Christmas Sunday,
and hear Santa NP01Claus, NP03rednose, Rudolph and all the
other Reindeer and toy delivery specialists live. Have a
Merry Christmas one and all and to all of you, get some sleep
tonight and pray nobody collects on our flight insurance
policies! 73's and 88's, NP11RED is QRT."


Original: December 22, 2005



     'Twas The Night That Santa Got Busted For Peddling!

                                        By, Duane B. Fischer


     I want all of you to know that I deeply regret the
trauma I caused by having to deliver some of your presents a
day late last Christmas.  Having said that, let me come right
to the point.  According to Galileo, my elf in charge of
statistics, I have received eight boxcars stuffed with mail
from irate children and parents accusing me of being
politically insensitive.  I'm talking about 1,275,608 first
class letters costing $408,194.56 in postage!  Instead of
riding my ass like a LA freeway driver during rush hour, you
could have fed and clothed all of the needy children in
Chicago!  This mail constitutes harassment of the worst kind.
It is worse, much worse than a nagging wife or a whining
child.  All of this politically incorrect crap really shrinks
my shorts, if you know what I mean!  So blame the American
legal system for screwing up Christmas last year, not me!
As for the truth, here's what really happened.

     Everything was going according to Rudolph's flight
schedule when we made a routine stop in Minneapolis.
Chimneys aren't what they used to be, so I just
electronically beamed myself near the tree by the fireplace.
Boom!  Pieces of brick showered the room as a bullet
ricocheted into the carpet.  Out of the shadows jumped a
woman wearing a combat helmet and  night vision goggles.
"Hold it right there fat boy!", she shouted.  "One twitch of
a beard hair and I'll open that belly of yours up like a tin
can caught in a trash compactor!"  She waved the AK47 assault
rifle at me menacingly.  "Chill out!", I said joyfully.  I'm
Santa Claus and I'm just making a toy delivery for the
children."  "Yea.  And pigs fly out my ass if I eat mushrooms
too!  This is invasion of privacy you pervert, so drop that
knapsack and peal those clothes off.  The next delivery you
make is going to be a urine sample for a drug test!"

     She turned on the family room lights, removed the night
vision goggles and walked closer to me.  Her eyes scanned me
like a gourmet chef inspecting rump roasts in a meat locker!
"I'm an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.
Now who are you really and how did you get into my house?"
"I'd feel a lot better if you would get that gun barrel out
of my belly button.", I said chuckling.  "I am Santa Claus,
there are toys in the sack and my sleigh and reindeer are
parked on your roof.  Now get out of my way lady, I've got a
lot of work to do tonight.  Incidentally, where did you put
my milk and cookies?"  She snorted.  "You are a vagrant
peddler and I hope that you've got receipts for those
presents.  Up against the fireplace you chubby old elf and
spread your legs!  They don't serve milk and cookies where
you're going."

     The police arrived on a snowmobile with no lights or
sirens.  After all, this was Minnesota and it was Christmas
Eve!  I was standing by the Christmas tree munching on a
handful of cookies from the last stop.  "Put some cuffs on
this weirdo and lock him up.", she ordered.  The two officers
looked at her, looked at me and then looked at each other.
"Lady.", one officer said slowly.  "Are you aware that there
is a sleigh with eight reindeer on your roof?  What's more,
the one looking down your chimney has a red strobe light for
a nose!  Incidentally, lady.  Put that gun down and do it
now!"  She flipped the safety on and laid the AK47 on the
couch.  "This overweight psycho in a Santa suit broke into my
house.  he is probably some stalker I prosecuted and sent to
prison who is out on parole and looking for revenge.
Furthermore, he sexually harassed me and I want to sign a
complaint!"  I lit my pipe and blew a smoke ring in the shape
of a wreath.  "Hey!", She shouted.  "You can't smoke in here!
Put that thing out, now!"  I chuckled.  "So sue me!", I
laughed.  "Do either of you officers have any candy?  Like
maybe a candy cane?  I'm really quite hungry?"

     One officer fumbled in his snowmobile suit pocket and
handed me some peanut butter cups and a note.  I nodded in
appreciation and glanced at the piece of paper.  It was his
daughter's toy list that he had forgotten to mail.  I would
sure like to see the look on his wife's face when he tells
her that he personally handed the list to the real Santa
Claus!

     "There are no signs of a forced entry of any kind.  No
broken windows, no forced doors no anything.  So either you
let him in, or he came down that chimney over there.  Sorry,
but there's no law against dropping in down a chimney!  Don't
you A.C.L.U. lawyers read the law books?  Now.", the sergeant
said suspiciously, "Just how did this gentleman sexually
harass you?".  "He winked at me, officer.  An obvious and
unmistakable sign of sexual interest.  I'm telling you this
fat man with a beard is some kind of sexual predator!  Arrest
him and get him out of here!"  I broke into a merry roar of
laughter.  "I love to eat and Mrs.  Claus is the best cook in
the world.  I've got a waist line to prove it!  After three
hundred years of being married, I'm sure not going to give
her up for the likes of you! You flunked Home Economics in
high school after you tried to boil potatoes you wrapped in
aluminum foil, put on a metal cookie sheet and stuck inside
their industrial microwave! More sparks flew out of it then
come off the skates of hockey players during a brawl! That
minor explosion caused a four alarm fire and you got six
months of corrective self-control therapy forthrowing your
bra into the flames and screaming "Burn baby burn!" While you
were in college you tried to bake cookies for the annual
Christmas bake sale, burnt Santa's buns black, burned the
wings off the Angels and caused the roasting Chestnuts to
explode like firecrackers on the fourth of July! Leave Mrs.
Claus for a culinary clutz like you?  Not if you stripped me
naked and flogged me with a Dream Whip! Try the Pillsberry
Dough Boy, lady, I hear he is looking for some buns to
knead!"

     The officers lost it.  Both of them broke into big
smiles and tears started to roll down their cheeks.  "I'll
have all of you arrested, prosecuted and locked away in an
asylum where you belong!", she shouted angrily.

     I finished the peanut butter cups and noticed the fruit
cake under the Christmas tree.  "Probably a family
heirloom.", I thought.  Those things never get moldy or
spoil.  They just become more flavorful with age."  She flew
into a sputtering rage as I reached for it.  "Either you
officers arrest him now and get him out of my house, or I
will shoot his ass!" Just about that time the front door flew
open and Rudolph pushed his way into the room.  The icy cold
wind howled, snowflakes flew through the air and the sound of
jingling bells filled the night.  She looked at Rudolph and
her eyes got as big as Dumbo's ears.  Her mouth dropped open
far enough for a semi with a full load to park there!  "If
there are no other questions officer.", I said chuckling
merrily.  "I really have to get back to work now.  I'll let
myself back out up through the chimney."

     I placed the children's presents under the tree and
quickly filled the stockings.  I turned toward her.  "Thanks
to you, I missed my bathroom stop by the Paul Bunyan statue.
Is it alright if I take a leak in your bathroom or should I
have the sergeant cite you for exposing yourself in a lewd
manner?"  Rudolph covered his eyes with a paw.  She looked
down at herself and turned redder than a spanked baby's butt!
"Oh my word!  I'm naked!", she exclaimed in a shriek shrill
voice high enough to shatter half a dozen glass balls on the
Christmas tree.  "Merry Christmas to all!", I shouted as I
vanished up the chimney.  "And to you lady, get a life!"


Original: November 15, 1996

Duane Fischer, W8DBF - WPE8CXO
E-Mail: dfischer at usol.com
Hallicrafters web site: www.w9wze.net
HHRP web site: hhrp.w9wze.net