Santa's Shoes
Bennett, Ralph Kinney
"Santa's Shoes" HUGH THOMAS Among new books which I read, the best were, first, Theodore Draper's The Struggle for Power, a fascinating study of the origins of the tragedy which led to the separation of Britain...
...Gates may have been a spook, but before that he was a trained historian and this book shows a historian's respect for his art...
...When my uncle showed up, we piled into the car and headed home...
...Sure, Roger and I always left cookies and cocoa on the piano stool for him, and we always found an empty cup and crumbs on Christmas morning...
...I mumbled something about a cowboy cap pistol "with revolving action" and a studded holster which I had seen in a magazine or the Sears catalogue...
...Mom bought us little bags of hard candy at Woolworth's and we waited on a corner for a glimpse of Uncle George's blue Chrysler Windsor in the rush-hour traffic...
...Finally, our parcel-laden caravan headed for Kaufmann's...
...My reverie was broken by Uncle George's voice...
...The American Spectator • December r996 51...
...is editor-in-chiefof'The American Spectator and the author most recently of Boy Clinton: The Political Biography (Regnery)• Santa's Shoes What a rural Pennsylvania boy discovered when he traveled to the big city...
...I couldn't hear what Santa was saying to me...
...Gates began in the late 196o's as an analyst at CIA and rose to major positions at the National Security Council, eventually becoming CIA's top banana, to coin a phrase...
...Brown wingtip shoes...
...But my mind was still on footwear...
...What did he know...
...Overwhelmed, I made a giddy rush across the plush red carpet and was hoisted into his lap...
...Santa was no longer a merry wraith of poetry, an unseen object of yearning who left empty cocoa cups and cookie crumbs on a piano stool...
...It is elegantly written, falls for little or none of the bosh heaved up by both sides in the Nixon saga, and embraces most of the very latest scholarship...
...With verve and personality, Gates reveals much of how we won the Cold War...
...Stendhal wrote The Charterhouse of Parma after he served as an officer in Napoleon's army...
...But I couldn't take my eyes off those brown wingtip shoes...
...But shadows and doubts were starting to rustle in the back of my six-year-old mind...
...He asked me the big question...
...I didn't say a word to my brother about Santa's shoes...
...Nick himself...
...I sat on the edge of the rear seat, face pressed against the window, gazing at the Christmas lights in the houses along the Penn-Lincoln Parkway...
...But we were in Pittsburgh...
...John Quincy Adams is the hero...
...When my turn came, I had to be prodded by Mom...
...The cheeks were rosey, the smile benign...
...Before my brother could answer, I bolted up, leaning over the seat-back and hugging my uncle's shoulder...
...It was a weighty matter I felt I couldn't share with anyone...
...He wasn't quite as rotund as I'd expected, but it was Santa for sure, bathed in bright light and seated in a great chair...
...Impossible...
...There was, for instance, the difficulty with the chimney...
...It was already dark when we left Kaufmann's...
...Grandma, wrapped in her black cloth coat with the big rhinestone brooch, led her daughters and grandchildren through shoe stores, candy stores, fabric shops, clothing stores, and food markets piled high with oranges, fruit cakes, and hams...
...When Santa Claus has to come to the city, he wears shoes just like yours...
...At the Bennett house in Rector, Pennsylvania, Santa came up on the front porch and through the door (I had never known it to be locked, ever...
...As he put his red velvet-swathed arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer, I looked down shyly...
...True, our desires ofthe heart, carefully mailed to the North Pole after hours of poring over the Sears Roebuck catalogue, had always shown up under the tree...
...His book actually may be read as a history of the last half of that struggle, and I can think of no similar tome to equal it...
...Yeah," I said, "and guess what...
...They had laces and hundreds of little pin holes set in fancy patterns...
...And he certainly knew how much I wanted that cap pistol...
...It was under the tree a few weeks later...
...Maybe he thought I was embarrassed, looking down as I did...
...Its scenes are vividly depicted...
...I was aware — mainly from cartoons in the Saturday Evening Post—that Santa visited major department stores to procure first-hand information from kids...
...he knew a man had to wear city shoes when he was in the city...
...I have never understood why modern, educated readers turn to pop bestsellers when they can read and reread the masters of Western fiction with less pain than, say, Philip Roth or John Grisham to the reading mind...
...This was truly the stuff of movies...
...Bundled in our gray wool snowsuits, my brother and I were simply trembling at doing something so impossibly civilized as traveling by rail...
...Thus, it was with special anticipation that I awaited the trip to Pittsburgh—a venture into a world of roaring trucks and groaning streetcars, sidewalks filled with men in topcoats and fedoras and women in furs...
...This book will no doubt appear in English soon...
...I kept leaning out of line to catch a glimpse...
...Contrary to what the reader may think, the author identifies most sensitively with the kidnapped persons whose tragedy he chronicles meticulously and accurately (because it is in a sense a nonfiction novel...
...Simpson...
...Its characters are alive and engrossing...
...I think it is one of the author's best works...
...Now I was certain he was real, and sensible too...
...He crossed the flowered linoleum floor and proceeded to the glowing tree right next to the encyclopedia bookcase...
...Grandma was getting weary and a bit testy and the two shopping bags she carried were bulging...
...Raised amid woods and fields, I was always dazzled by the idea of walking all day on brick, concrete and asphalt, my feet never touching earth...
...Then we traipsed the streets to the sound of car horns, Salvation Army bells, and Christmas music...
...Oblivious to the buzz of conversation in the car, I mused on boots and shoes and Santa Claus...
...eling to Pittsburgh was a rare enough event...
...By Ralph Kinney Bennett We were sitting around the kitchen table, finishing up turkey croquettes two days after Thanksgiving, when Mom announced that we would soon be making a trip into Pittsburgh for Christmas shopping...
...Hugh Thomas's last bookwas Conquest (Simon & Schuster), anew study ofthe conquest ofMexico by Cortez...
...Everybody laughed, even Grandma...
...On Christmases past, this mythic, elusive figure had thwarted my most determined efforts to meet him face to face...
...I knew that the red-suited fellow who handed out littletreats in the town square back home was really the police chief...
...I sat back in the seat feeling indescribably happy and secure...
...Among older books, I read with great enjoyment Edith Wharton's The Reef twice...
...And to top it off, once in the city, we enjoyed what only could have been the repast of kings — buttered toast and hot chocolate—served to us as we perched high on stools at the lunch counter of a bustling five-and-ten...
...For my twin brother Roger and me, the prospect of trayRALPH KINNEY BENNETT is a senior editor in the Washington bureau of Reader's Digest...
...Depressing business that—the best biography of Richard Nixon is not written by one of his countrymen but by a Brit and a member of Parliament to boot...
...Up the escalator we went to where he was holding court at the end of a long carpeted approach bounded by velvet ropes...
...Or could he...
...Each time Mother read Clement Moore's "A Visit From St...
...Nicholas" and reached the point where "down the chimney" he "came with a 50 December 1 9 96 • The American Spectator 2 0 bound," I envisioned the slim black sheet steel tube curving into the wall above the old coal stove in our living room...
...And Stendhal can tell a story even better than O.J...
...I was so stunned that Santa had to shake me to get my attention...
...So, you kids saw Santa Claus today...
...I was faintly aware that certain impostors might dress up like Santa...
...Nixon: A Life by Jonathan Aitken is by far the best biography of the thirty-seventh president...
...I slid off his knee and looked back at him—the kind, pink face framed in snow-white hair, the bright red suit, the wide belt with its huge buckle, and those brown wingtip shoes...
...I arly one cold morning, Roger and F I boarded the train to Pittsburgh in company with Mom, Aunt Inez, and Grandma, an imposingly large lady who made traveling salesmen's throats go dry when she answered the door...
...I also greatly enjoyed William Lee Miller's Arguing About Slavery, the absorbing story with documentation of the determination of a tiny minority in the House of Representatives to put the issue of slavery on the agenda of the legislature in the 1830's...
...I was almost dizzy at the prospect...
...Finally, I have indulged my appetite for fiction upon finishing my own severely factual account of the life of our celebrity president...
...Impassable...
...R. EMMETT TYRRELL, JR...
...Instead of his big knee-high boots, Santa was wearing some kind of patent leather leggings...
...Well, I told myself, this wasn't Clement Moore's house...
...But this time, Mom said, there was a "good chance" we would get to meet 01' St...
...Having devoted my last three years to writing the biography of the most wholesome political leader since Mussolini, I decided to spend the ensuing months immersed in biography and autobiography...
...REmrnettTyrrell,Jr...
...HUGH THOMAS Among new books which I read, the best were, first, Theodore Draper's The Struggle for Power, a fascinating study of the origins of the tragedy which led to the separation of Britain and the Thirteen Colonies...
...My mouth opened in shock...
...He dispensed the proper gifts, paused for the snack at the piano, and was off to Timmy Thompson's across the road, then on down to where the Rohaleys lived above their grocery store...
...They publish only the best...
...As for autobiography I turned to my friend Bob Gates's From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War...
...So it was natural that he would be stopping at Kaufmann's in Pittsburgh, 6o miles and a world away from our country crossroads in the Allegheny mountains...
...No doubt about it...
...What is more, Nixon: A Life is published by my publisher, Regnery, a company I hold in high regard...
...This was the real thing...
...The best book I read in a language not English was Garcia Marquez's new novel, Noticias del Secuestrado...
...There were swirls of snow in the streetlights...
...The beard was as real as it was white...
...And protruding from beneath them—brown wingtip shoes...
...We inspected the wares at Gimbel's, evaluated the offerings at Home's...
...No impostor could sit in this big chair...
...The descriptions of France, both in Paris and in the country, are dazzling...
...It is a masterpiece of wit, suspense, and sensitivity...
Vol. 29 • December 1996 • No. 12
