innocent no more
Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Wed, 26 May 1999 08:20:16 +0100
I wonder did I *ever* believe in Santa Claus?
I somehow doubt it. I seem to have imbibed
scepticism along with my mother's milk.
The question does, however, evoke a vivid memory
which - thanks to a particular circumstance - I can
date rather precisely.
On the eve of my seventh birthday (Dec. 23), I was
walking home with my father along a snow covered
street in the small country town in Scotland where
we lived at that time. It was a night bright with a big,
full moon. Trying - as ever - to be the comic, I made
a great pantomime of suddenly glancing up at the sky
& acting as if stunned by a fleeting glimpse of Santy
& his reindeer already on their way, two days early.
My father reacted with a dramatic continuation
of the same pretence. When he persisted with the charade,
though - even after I'd insisted I was only fooling -
he did so with the kind of knowing smile that made
us both conspirators.
It was a wonderfully satisfying episode. *I* knew that
*he* knew that *I* knew there was no such individual.
In maintaining the joke, however, he had quite suddenly
brought me into the company of the grown ups -
the grown ups who maintain a vast edifice of rubbish
with the specific purpose of keeping stupid people
& small children in their place.
I realised I'd now been promoted out of their company.
I was one of the big boys at last.
Scottie B.