Santa comes to the Yulan Fire Department

“Tis the Season”

By CHRISTOPHER FRYE

The first thing a little kid noticed as he approached the Yulan Fire Department building was a brace of outdoor lamps in the shape of a fireman’s helmet. Even in a dense fog, the red glow from these beacons pointed the way toward the huge retractable doors that rolled up and unleashed the famous Seagrave fire trucks that protected our homes and lives.

But on this particular evening, we were there not just to gawk at the shiny apparatus, nor to hold our ears against the torso-shaking blast of the fire sirens. No, this was that magical night when Santa Claus came to Yulan, bearing gifts for all of us kids.

During a childhood in the Town of Highland, there were plenty of ways to calibrate your march to maturity. You could track your physical growth with progressive pencil marks on the doorjamb at home; that worked. You could progress from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts to Explorer Scouts. Of course, you could play your way from Jayvee to Varsity in the band box gym of Eldred Central School.

But the Yulan Fire Department provided such a variety of activities that you could build a chain of memories that denoted your age as surely as do the rings on the maple tree shading your backyard. On the trajectory from childhood, your first step was to meet Santa in the Yulan Fire House.

The firemen and their ladies auxiliary diligently compiled lists of all the kids in town and somehow—without benefit of a Web site—got them to show up on the appointed evening for the annual christmas party.

The firehouse was always a fun house for kids; the Christmas party just magnified the thrills. Obviously we were anxious to crawl up on the trucks, try on the boots and helmets, and gaze at the mysterious gauges, valves, and panels that sparkled before us. We knew that, since we had no fire hydrants, these trucks pumped water from the local ponds through their bellies and into the heavy hoses that lay curled up like so many tan pythons just waiting for the crackling brush fire or the smoldering tool shed.

We vaguely knew that the members of the fire department prolonged their business meetings with games of pool and hands of poker, so tonight was the night we got to see the big green felt-covered tables and imagined what it would be like to grow up and take our places there one day—for this was what manhood looked like to us.

Little did we know that the firemen (and they were indeed all men) had gone shopping for us and had arranged for Santa to front for them at this holiday event. So, after much scampering about the firehouse, a bit of gorging on holiday goodies and the inevitable shooing away from the pool table, the moment came.

In anticipation of Santa’s “Have you been a good boy?” grilling, we quickly took our seats on the gleaming running boards of the fire trucks, or in the wooden folding chairs with “YFD” stenciled on their backs, or in our parent’s laps and held our collective breath as the red-suited, white-bearded, black-belted symbol of our favorite time of year entered from the rear of the fire house.

“Ho, ho, ho,” he bellowed as he squeezed gingerly between the trucks. “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.” The flash bulbs popped, the parents grinned and a goodly portion of the kids of Barryville, Yulan and Eldred squealed in delight and anticipation. As he strode to the front of the crowd, with an honest-to- goodness sack of toys over his shoulder, we knew we were in the North Pole and the best was yet to come.

Yes, in that tiny firehouse in the decidedly working- class town of Yulan, each and every kid got a toy from Santa; he called us by name and we ran up to greet him We mumbled our practiced “Thank you’s” and scooted back down the aisles as the cries of “Mommy, look what Santa gave me!” ricocheted around the building.

How did he know our names we wondered? But we didn’t dwell on the mystery because we soon got one more treat—a box of hard candies with a string handle on it. Of all the Christmas traditions I remember, there is nothing more vivid than the five or six round raspberry candies among the assortment in that box. I forsook all the other flavors, colors and shapes to find those raspberry ones—like a forty-niner panning for gold I swirled that box around and poked my fingers through the contents until those red nuggets popped out.

What followed were the inevitable comparing, coveting, and sharing of the new toys. Santa posed for pictures, reminded us to be good to each other and to listen to our parents, and then bid us good night. We imagined his sled was parked outside, but we were too engrossed in our gifts to go find out.

My little-boy Christmases always got off to a very good start on those nights in the Yulan Fire House. A new toy, my favorite candies melting in my mouth and Santa Claus—in the person of Mickey McCann, a farmer and volunteer fireman from Hillside—bringing joy and prolonging innocence.

The members of the Yulan Fire Department have always unselfishly protected life and property—but it is probably their role in forging a community that is their greatest gift to the people. Even better than those raspberry candies.