Vintage photographs of Andrews, Texas – my hometown.

Mr. Longley’s Barber Shop.  This is how I remember Andrews.  (Sweet Mother of Pearl!  I have been looking for this photograph for years.  And tonight I found it.  I just had to show it to you.  This photograph was once published in the Dallas Morning News showcasing an exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth (I think).  The exhibit was a collection of photographs taken by photographers for Humble and Standard Oil Companies.

Back to the reason for this post:

This is a true story that happened to me one Christmas in that little West Texas town called Andrews.  Andrews was a far cry from the North Pole, and Christmas trees were even somewhat hard to come by.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, we always had a Christmas tree, but they were rather scrawny by today’s standards.  (People actually made Christmas trees out of the tumbling tumbleweeds.  It is not a lie! )  I remember having discussions with friends about how Santa was able to come into our homes on Christmas Eve since we did not have chimneys.  We decided he was magical and could come through those little vent pipes on the roofs of our homes.

Our family lived on Parker Street.  Across the street from us lived a large family with multiple children and multiple live animals.  This family did not celebrate Christmas.  One day when I was about six or seven, Jim Bob  – a bully from that family – told me there was no such thing as Santa Claus.

I knew it was not the truth.  I argued, but he insisted!

I ran home bawl-eyed and yelling for Mother.  She thought I was hurt ’cause I was crying so hard.  Through my sobs, I told her what Jim Bob had said.

“Just calm down,” Mother said.  “Lets’s look it up in The Book of Knowledge.  Santa Claus has to be real if he is in The Book of Knowledge.”

(Mother had recently purchased a new set of encyclopedias – I think it was a twenty volume set – called The Book of Knowledge, and we were proud to own them.  There was information from all over the world, and we were always searching the pages for answers to our questions.  I was convinced that this set of encyclopedias was the source of ALL knowledge.  You could learn about anything and everything in these volumes.

We went to the bookshelf, found Vol. S, and  Mother turned the pages. There it was.  Santa Claus….  There was even a picture.

SO!  I was convinced.  Santa had to be real.   If we could read about him in The Book of Knowledge, he was real.  How could anyone argue with that?  Certainly not that bully Jim Bob!

I guess Santa just comes to good little girls and boys who believe.

Blessings to you and yours,

Mother was a smart lady!

I must learn how to resize pictures.  Sorry!