When my sister and I were little, my Mom used to take us downtown to Marshall Field's to see Santa Claus, but not on Christmas Day, a week or two before. Santa came to our house on Christmas Eve and, when we went to Grandma's house the next day, we would find that he had left presents for us there too. I seem to remember that, at least once, Santa himself appeared at our front door with his bag of loot for us but, most of the time, there would just be a pounding on the door and a "Ho, ho, ho". We would rush to open the door but, by the time we got there, Santa would be gone and the presents would be in a neat pile just outside. Mom said that Santa got busier and busier each year because of the post war baby boom, so he didn't have time to stop for milk and cookies at every house anymore. He even had to hire a bunch of helpers because of the extra work load. When we went to Field's, it wasn't Santa himself who we visited, it was one of his many helpers. All those guys ringing bells for the Salvation Army were also Santa's helpers.
I don't remember ever seeing the Christmas parade in Chicago, but I saw one in Cheboygan and it was a disappointment. I never cared for the Thanksgiving parade on TV either. I like Fourth of July parades though, and I enjoyed marching in parades when I was in the Boy Scouts, the R.O.T.C, and later, in the real army.
Were those panhandling fairies you saw collecting for some charity, or were they just out to make a buck for themselves? Every time you think you've seen it all, you find out that you ain't seen nothing yet!
Everybody I knew who hunted bears ate the meat, and also had the skin made into a rug. I had some bear meat once, and I thought it tasted a lot like lamb. I like lamb, but some people don't, so they probably wouldn't like bear meant either. I've had coon meat once or twice in my life, and I seem to remember that I liked it, but I don't remember what it tasted like. My hypothetical wife tried roasting one of the coons I shot, and we didn't like it, too greasy. If I ever get one again, I plan to grill it on the gas grill outdoors. I think if you cooked all the fat out of it, it would be all right. Deer don't usually have a lot of fat on them, but you want to trim it all off because it's not like beef or pork fat, more like the tallow that they used to make candles out of. People who hunt or trap coons usually do it for the fur, but I don't think they waste the meat. They say that the young ones are good, but the old ones usually get fed to the dogs.
We used to know an old trapper who would buy any furs you brought in, but he died. He would buy the whole animal and skin it himself because, if you don't know how to do it right, you can ruin the value of the fur. Once a year he would take his fur collection to an auction somewhere. I tried processing my own coon fur, but I made a mess or it, and decided it was not worth the trouble. My hypothetical wife agreed, although she was happy to get the new washing machine that I had to buy after I ruined her old one.
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