1965---SMALL BOY ASKS SANTA FOR A JUNK YARD

Once upon a time, a small boy sat on Santa's lap in a department store and asked Santa to bring him a real junk yard for Christmas. To the parents' astonishment, a startled Santa said "YES"!

Santa's indiscretion in making that promise resulted in the boy enlisting his mother to help him write a very specific letter to Santa. The boy included items he would need to run his junk yard, and the letter was taken to the post office and mailed.

A miraculous postscript to this story is that the junkyard actually did arrive on Christmas Eve, in a huge box delivered by a local junk yard dealer. Somehow the man had heard the story of the boy's wish, and when he arrived at the family's door, he told the boy he did not have the exact things the boy had asked for, but what he did have came from real cars and were real items from his very own junk yard, on Santa's direct orders.

The car parts inside the box had been carefully cleaned and were carefully labelled, with notes detailing what kind of cars they came from and how the parts worked.

The little boy treasured that gift and often slept with one part or another, as some small children might sleep with a stuffed animal.

In later years, in middle school, the boy would win a science fair by building a small model engine, to demonstrate and explain how a small engine works. His inspiration had begun with the Christmas junk yard.

The boy is now a father with children of his own. If he didn't understand as a child, he surely understands now, that the arrival of that special junk yard at his door on Christmas Eve, when he was four years old, was proof enough that Santa Claus can walk in many guises.

Including junk yard operators. And post office workers. And daddies...