Kingsport Times-News from Kingsport, Tennessee • 105

TIMES-NEWS WEEKENDER FRIDAY December 25 1987 13 A traditional Christmas letter brings back fond memories of them are on deadline and want a few words on the she said matter-of-fact-ly and most call around Christmas usually very anonymous the rest of the she added with a deprecating chuckle We talked on in this vein for perhaps another 15 or 20 minutes until she gracefully said she had to go and I regretfully said goodbye I had a sense as I hung up the phone of having reached out and touched a bit of history Although I had no way of knowing it then of course other interviews with people far more powerful and famous would follow in the years ahead but somehow even then I knew I would remember Virginia and our conversation together The next day after persuading my city editor that an interview with Virginia was something worth printing in the paper I sat down to write my first interview We still used manual typewriters then not the silent glowing video display terminals that stare from our desks nowadays And so after much wasted paper and penciled-in punctuation marks I finally brought in my precious manuscript and deposited it on the city desk He scanned the pages quickly and a frown crossed his face I knew I was in trouble never say how old she my no-nonsense editor said That stopped me in my tracks How could I have forgotten such an elementary element? But I braved it out by responding still 8 years old to me and I went on feigning the antebellum attitude of a Virginia gentleman not polite to ask a woman her He raised one eyebrow in his best city-editor fashion as if to say politeness was not exactly one of my visible virtues and joy Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias There would be no childlike faith then no poetry no romance to make tolerable this existence We should have no enjoyment except in sense and sight The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus but even if they see Santa Claus coming down what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus The most real things in the world are those that no children or men can see Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not but no proof that they are not there Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen or unseeable in the world Santa Claus! Thank God he lives and he lives forever A thousand years from now Virginia nay ten times ten thousand years from now he will continue to make glad the heart of That reply printed Sept 21 1897 began a 40-odd year tradition of Christmas reprints at the New York Sun until it folded early in the 20th century From there hundreds of other newspapers picked up the letter and reply until the mere two-word phrase became an editorial chestnut surviving not only its author but its era as well As the years passed Virginia told me other reporters similarly inquisitive or prodded by their editors had called her about her famous missive Continued from page 12 the New York Times convinced me that Virginia was indeed still very much alive And wonder of wonders she was listed in the telephone directory! After several more hesitations and pangs of conscience about disturbing her I finally dialed the number She answered after several rings with a kind grandmotherly voice and I managed to tell her as best I could who I was how I had found her and why I was calling She was a gem She talked freely and quite animatedly about her life (she had gone into teaching after college) She was surprised to no end that I had read her college thesis and we talked for several more minutes about Shakespeare and in truth 1 think she probably learned as much about me as I learned from her It was more of a friendly conversation than an interview really She talked of Francis Church of how he had originally pooh-poohed the idea of even responding to her letter until his boss demanded he draft a reply She had written that little friends say is no Santa My Papa says if you see it in The Sun so Please tell me is there a Santa The usually acerbic Church far more at home writing about momentus national and international events of the day than responding to inquisitive children nevertheless took the in stride said he spent only about three-quarters of an hour on the response which reads in part: Virginia there is a Santa Claus He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty ink and ammonia and the roar of the presses surrounding me I saw that my city editor had left my story exactly as I had written it He had not even reworked the lead as he had so often done before Nor had he cut it this from the editor who used to say there is nothing wrong with an 11-inch story except that it is two inches too I know what going to say going to say he for-got to make the correction in the rush of the daily deadline But I know better He was too i careful for that I think it was because was still 8 years old to him too Yes Virginia there IS a San- ta Claus 1 she was 8 years old in 1897 that means she was born in 1889 Whitlock a child could figure it I started to take the story back when he waved me off with a domineering flip of his hand no bother fix it he muttered and he stalked out of the office no doubt on the way to similarly scold someone else I grabbed my sweater and headed for lunch Later that afternoon when the papers began rolling off the presses in the basement of the building I picked one up anxious to see what surgery had been performed on my story There in the yellow glow of flourescent lights the smell of.