The Unmuddled Mathematician

Christmas of 1949

By Chris Coray, The Unmuddled Mathematician

The winter of 1949 in Salt Lake City was the most severe in my life and has not been equaled since.  I was 6 years old and have a vivid memory of my dad trying to save our outside trees and shrubs from the deer.  The snow was so deep and the winter so cold that all the deer moved into the city as they were starving to death.  I watched one night as my dad took an old broom and tried to move the deer away from the yard plants and trees by pushing them away with the broom end.  It did not work, for they were so hungry they would not leave.  This was a nearly universal situation in the city and while shoveling was hard (we had no such thing as a snow blower), it was much harder on the deer and many did not survive.  What they needed was an Elvira or a Barbara willing to spend quite a lot on food.  Actually, they needed hundreds of such people.

Anyway, we decorated our Christmas tree in the usual way, with big round bulbs near the bottom and smaller ones near the top.  In those days if a bulb went out we had to find the defective one, replace it, and then we’d be back in action.  We always had a fat pinion pine tree and much later, when I got married, my wife and I agreed to alternate tree type every year.  We’d alternate between the fat pinions and the tall, slender pines.  This will be our 50^th Christmas together.  As you would expect, things haven’t exactly worked out fifty fifty.  The score so far is 1 pinion, 49 tall slender pines.  This year’s tree is 12 feet tall and beautiful but now the boss worries about my time on the ladder as we decorate it.

Back in 49 though, I had a really unusual experience.  Who knows what deep psychological scars are hidden just beneath my conscious thoughts.  You see, my dad was then an assistant district attorney in SLC.  My brother was 5, my sister 2.  On Christmas Eve, and I am not making this up, my dad came home and said he had some disturbing news.  The problem was that the police had arrested Santa for running a red light with his sleigh, and he was currently in the slammer.  

Maybe my heart actually stopped, but my dad didn’t deviate from the story.  He told me that there was nothing he could do but if I wanted he would take me to the jail so I could give Santa his cookies and milk through the bars.  You bet I went.  Maybe I could bust him out.  So, with the food goodies in hand we actually got into the car and drove to the jail.  All the correctional officers, knowing who my dad was and perhaps pre-warned, let us in the hall of the jail.  I walked down the hall, looking for Santa.  Strangely enough, there wasn’t a single person in any cell.  It turns out that in that wing of the jail and in that era, it was often the case that judges would let minor offenders out on Christmas Eve.  Finally, we got to what was Santa’s cell—but he was not there.  I immediately knew that Santa was too magical to be kept in a lousy jail cell, and my dad guessed that it was likely so.  The trip home was a lot happier than the trip down.  I tell this story in the hopes that you will now forgive me for each and every defect in my nature, which is full of as much stuff as Santa’s bag.  I suspect that my mom wasn’t too keen on the experience but it my house one had to be tough to survive.  Ask my brother.  I nearly killed him hundreds of times, mostly for no reason.

Anyway, with a heart and mind that kept getting better over time from the shock we continued with our ritual Christmas Eve preparations.  These included laying out the morning clothes on the floor before getting into bed.  It was a trail.  Nearest the bedroom door were my shoes, then socks, then pants, then shirt, all the way back to the bed.  The plan was to maximize speed since we had to be dressed before racing downstairs.  The milk and cookies were on a table in the living room, with a big thank you note to Santa pre-written.

Somehow I survived the night although I believed that at no time did I ever sleep.  Given my current ability to take a nap at any place, any time, with only a ten second interval from intent to sleep, I probably slept most of the night.  But it was still dark when my brother and I woke up for real, making enough noise that nobody else was going to sleep any more, and in a flash we were dressed and waiting at the top of the stairs.  When finally cleared to descend we went a whole lot faster than the slinky we inevitably got each Christmas.  Parenthetically I note that every slinky in the world should come with big wire cutters so inevitable tangles could be cut out with malice and without wasting 10 seconds.

At the bottom of the stairs, in our living room and like millions of other living rooms, was the booty provided by Santa.  The two things I still distinctly remember were the Lionel train set (Union Pacific) and the small, frightened, but unbelievably friendly, warm, black and white Springer Spaniel puppy.  We named him Mike and he was all a dog could ever be for a young boy.  I don’t think much about the citation Santa got any more,

but do remember the dog who loved us.  So did our parents and my childhood was nearly idyllic for its entire length.  May your Christmas be full of love for all, and give everybody a warm greeting and maybe a hug.