While I was home visiting my mother (91 and sharp as a tack), she reminded me of this story about my hometown, Mesa Arizona. During the Depression, downtown businesses were hurting and the editor of the Mesa Tribune, John McPhee, had an idea. Why not drum up business at Christmas by having Santa Claus arrive in grand style. He arranged for a Santa to parachute in and lead the downtown Christmas parade. The spectacle would draw shoppers from all of the nearby towns, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe and Gilbert.
When the grand day arrived, the would-be Santa showed up drunk. Not sure how this happened in a town founded and populated by Mormons. Town leaders quickly settled on “plan B.” Dress a mannequin in a Santa suit and force-feed the drunk coffee (also a no-no with Mormons). When the mannequin arrived via parachute, they would switch them. Perfect, except for one detail. As you may have guessed, the mannequin?s chute did not open and the crowd witnessed Santa plunging to his death. Kids cried, mothers screamed and the shoppers left town with their wallets full.
My parents did not arrive in Mesa until 1946, but this story is repeated every year as part of the town’s Christmas tradition. When the instigator of this plan died 36 years latter, his obituary headline read, “The Man Who Killed Santa Claus, Died.”
