The scrapbook was old. I'd found it underneath the index files in the Pennsylvania Room a few months ago, in the Ross Library where I work. I stood at the desk, paging through it.
I'm a library staffer at the Annie Halenbake Ross Library in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. I'm also a freelance writer, paranormal investigator, and board member at the Piper Aviation Museum. It's not what I'd ever researched back on career day.
"Gotta find a column," I said.
My co-worker, Adam, walked by and saw me paging through the book. "What're you working on, Lou?" he asked.
"I'm finding a topic for my Christmas column," I said. "In the Express, I always write about something warm and Christmassy for the holidays, I figured I might get something out of the Piper scrapbook---It's got a lot of old articles about when Piper Aviation was in town."
"Any luck yet?"
"Working on it."
I found a newspaper clipping, bottom of the page. It showed a Piper employee in 1949 dressed as Santa, handing out gifts from a sleigh. I nodded.
This might work. I'll need to find out some more, expand it a bit, but I can make this happen.
Usually I look for obituaries on the people in these situations, and see who they were and how they ended up. The caption said that the guy playing Santa was named John, so I checked the index for his obit. The Pennsylvania Room is the oldest part of the library, and it's where I work---My desk is right among all the historic archives and files. History is my office.
I found John's obit, and looked it over.
He'd died in jail ten years after the Santa incident. He'd been arrested for abusing his family, and hung himself in the old jail on Church Street.
That's not the warm holiday story I thought it was.
"Well, I still can't use it in a column," I said to Tracey, one of my co-workers. "It's too recent; he'll still have relatives alive. But it's fascinating. I've investigated the old jail, and it's definitely haunted. It's probably haunted by the ghost of Santa Claus."
"Yeah, that's interesting," said Tracey.
"Okay, yeah, I get it," I said. "I'm all excited over a suicidal Santa. I know. I need some professional help."
"Aren't you the one who wrote an article about a local nudist colony and headlined it The Haven Wears Nada?" asked Tracey.
"Yeah, that was one of mine."
"Any plans for the weekend?" she asked.
"I'm going to visit my brother on the family farm," I said. "Pick out our Christmas tree."
"Hi, Papa!" My little son, Paul Matthew, happily greeted his grandfather. Paul is adopted, a sweet little black boy of two years old. The whole family was in the kitchen of the old farmhouse where I'd grown up, on Green Valley Farm. My brother, my sister, my father. Paul Matthew was playing with his cousins, whom he adores.
"I got some presents," my brother said. He handed us each a piece of hardwood, with a small hanger on the back. Each one was engraved with NORTHERN LEHIGH LITTLE THEATER.
"These from the stage at the high school?" I asked.
He nodded. "They had some water damage, so they had to cut some of it up. They sold the pieces off for a fundraiser. I thought you guys would like them."
"You thought right," I said. "I grew up on that stage."
More than anyone knows. Thirty years ago, in 1986, I went through a suicide attempt at age sixteen. The school musical was what saved me---I was taking care of the Orphans, thirteen girls playing the parts in Annie. It was where I got my support, and what taught me to get through my life and try to do good things.
"I'm gonna hang this up," I said. "Thanks."
"We need someone for the personnel committee," President John said to me. "Are you willing? You only have to be in two meetings a year, and this is one of them."
"Sure, I'm in," I said. I was wearing my T-shirt that said Bigfoot: Hide And Seek Champion. "Got a question for you."
We were in my office at the Piper Museum. I'm a board member there, since last June---John, the board president, had invited me. I act as the curator there, and my office is a huge archive room in what was once an airplane factory. Piper planes were once made in Lock Haven, and the museum is dedicated to them. This means I basically have an office on each end of the city, which can be convenient.
"Do you remember a time about 1949 when they had a guy dressed as Santa Claus handing out gifts in the lumber storage area?" I asked. "He came in on a sleigh."
He shook his head. "Probably a union thing. I don't remember that. I do recall a time when the Beech Creek Parade was going on, and a couple of the pilots wanted Santa to parachute from a Tri-Pacer. When he opened the door, it threw off the air and sent the plane into a spin. The pilots shouted at him to jump already, but Santa froze and almost crashed the plane."
I laughed. President John is great; he has all sorts of cool stories about the old days, and requires almost no encouragement to share them. "I found an old article about the Santa thing. The guy who played Santa died in jail later. The coroner had your last name....Was he related?"
"That was my Uncle Roy," said President John. "He was coroner for about thirty years. He lived at the old jail all that time. He used to dress as Santa, too, every Christmas, and used to make appearances on WBPZ or Triangle Park as Santa."
"That's cool."
"He killed himself, too. Shot himself in the head in 1970."
"My god," I said. "Really?"
"So, you remember when we investigated the old jail a couple of years ago?" I asked Savanah. "Turns out it's haunted by the ghost of not one, but two suicidal Santas."
Savanah and I were sitting together in the graphic novel section of the library, which is also my territory. Savanah is a member of Teen Paranormal, the teenaged paranormal investigative group that I run. She's a dyed-rainbow-haired pixie with a talent for costume design, and she's been with the team for the past three years.
"That is so weird," she said. "It sounds like being Santa Claus is cursed or something."
"In the old jail, it is, for sure. I thought that was really, really interesting."
"So did you ever find a column?" she asked. "You're not going to write about dead Santas for your Christmas column, are you?"
"No, that's not exactly festive," I said. "I'm not going to use that. It's for my consumption only."
"Do you have something to write about?" she asked.
"Oh, yeah," I said. "I just got it done." I glanced back at my desk, where the article was still up on the screen.
The headline read SANTA CLAUS AND THE TRI-PACER.
"Come on, kiddo," I said. "Let's go on up to the Sloan Room. We're learning about Bigfoot tonight."
