Author’s Introduction 

The “Talking With Santa Claus” program has been running on WKOK AM forever.  Back in the late 1940s and 1950s, it was mandatory listening for all the baby boomers every night at 5:00 PM from December 1 through December 24, when Santa’s “lift-off” was broadcast live via a remote hookup from the North Pole.  The current realization of the program is vastly different than the one produced in 1952 when I made my fateful visit to the radio station.  Read on to discover what today’s kids are missing. 

From when I was old enough to be cognizant of the radio, I’d sit in front of the old Westinghouse glued to every word and sound effect.  The format was simple.  A group of six kids would be assembled in the studio, and Mike Kane, one of announcers, would call station S-A-N-T-A at the North Pole on some sort of short wave.  After battling with the static and weak signals, Santa Claus himself could be heard answering Mr. Kane.  With a tinkling celeste in the background, Santa would confirm contact.  Early on, he would open the door to the sound of howling wind.  Snow birds would start chirping, and Santa would say, “Hmmm, you don’t say…” in a seriously worried voice.  “More snow.  Hmmm…”  Serious stuff.  If there wasn’t enough snow, how could his sleigh get off the ground? 

Mr. Kane would interview three kids.  Each one had to give name, address (very important if Santa Claus was going to deliver the right goods to the right kid), what grade you were in, and what school you attended.  (In the 1950s, Sunbury had six neighborhood grade schools for a population of around 15,000.)  Then came the want list, all the usual stuff of kiddom:  roller skates, cap guns, BB guns, electric trains, dolls, puppies.  Nothing really exciting like a 1928 blower Bentley.  Kids back then had a sense of propriety, even though technically Santa Claus was capable of producing anything. 

After the want lists came the mandatory bribes.  You had to either sing or recite, just like religious supplicants the world over had done for the last 8,000 years.  After that, Mr. Kane turned it over to Santa Claus, who exclaimed over the originality and finesse of the millionth version of off-key “Jingle Bells” he had heard.  He had an elfin “Brownie” helper by the name of Buttons who supplied sound effects:  cap guns going off, electric trains running in circles, dolls whining “Mama,” which through the miracle of electronic vacuum tubes you could actually hear in the studio all the way from the North Pole!  Buttons was also Santa’s principal snitch, who spent the off season zipping all over the globe spying on every kid in existence.  Did you see the curtain move?  If you thought that was just hot air from the furnace, Buttons had you nailed.  Santa Claus wasn’t “making a list and checking it twice,” Buttons was!  It was Santa’s final trump card.  After all of that, he’d ask Buttons if you’d been good or bad.  If you were a Goody-Two-Shoes with smarmy parents, Buttons reported in his hideous squeeky voice that you had a gold star by your name in Santa’s book.  You know the book:  the one with over 100,000,000 kid names, all neatly arranged by town, county, state, country, hemisphere.  God help you if you didn’t have a gold or silver star.  It was a bucket of coal or a bundle of switches for you while simultaneously being horribly humiliated on the air while 100,000,000 kids were listening in.  Playing dice with Santa Claus was not for the feint of heart. 

With three kids done, it was time for a break.  Santa Claus would announce that the “Brownie Band” would do a number.  Why?  Who cared?  The kids were there to bribe Santa Claus and put in the fix for Christmas, not to be bored stiff by what sounded like a Klezmer band of mechanical midgets.  But you only heard about thirty seconds before it faded away to a commercial for Rea & Derrick, the Central Susquehanna Valley’s very own drug store and soda fountain chain.  Somehow, the discontinuity and absurdity of Santa Claus shilling for “Rea’s” escaped the kids.  Put it down to what the child psychologists call “the willing suspension of disbelief,” a well-known malady of being a kid that allowed you to play cowboys and Indians when nobody looked like a cowboy or an Indian. 

The second half was a repeat of the first, with Santa Claus and Mr. Kane signing off right at 5:29 PM, getting off the air seconds before Lowell Thomas and the national CBS news. 

 

I Meet Mrs. Santa Claus in 2005 

Somehow, my Aunt Ruth, who lived in Mifflinburg, PA, found out that I had a 78 rpm record of my visit to the “Talking With Santa” program on WKOK.  She mentioned it to a friend in her Sunday school class: Mabel Smith, the widow of Homer Smith who was Santa Claus on the radio program.  She also happened to be the general manager of the station throughout the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.  Mrs. Smith was amazed that ANYBODY still had one of the records.  In a series of letters amongst the three of us, my aunt arranged for Mrs. Smith to borrow a small cassette player, and I sent her a tape of my record along with a letter of what I could remember of my visit.  First, the letter…

“I hope you enjoy the tape recording I made from the record I have of my visit to talk to Santa.  Note that the date is December 7, 1952.  I had just turned six and was in first grade at Hill School on 11^th Street.  My teacher, Miss Stein, lived right next to the school, and my cousin, Beverly Lytle was a patrol girl who tended the tiny intersection of Court and 11^th Streets.

“From my earliest memories of Christmas, I can remember sitting on the floor in front of our old Westinghouse radio and listening to the “Talking to Santa” program on WKOK.  We would listen to it most evenings, of course never missing the December 24^th program during which Santa would fly off with his sleigh to begin his long journey.

“I remember being amazed that my mother had gotten me onto the program.  I was to appear with my younger cousin, Pam Strouse.  In fact, at the very end of the record you can hear Mike Kane say, ‘Santa, here’s a little girl…’  That little girl was Pam, who was sitting right next to me.

“You can’t imagine the excitement building over the days before the broadcast.  I told everybody at school, and I was sure that all of them and most probably the entire free world would be listening that night.  I can remember sitting in this little waiting room or lounge on the second floor of the WKOK building.  A teletype machine was chattering away in a corner.  I had never seen one before.  Every once in a while, a woman would come into the room, tear off a long section of teletype paper, and walk away scanning the bulletins.  [I learned later that that was Mrs. Smith herself, carrying out one of her many managerial duties.  Back then, the news never rested, not even for Santa Claus.]  It was beyond belief that in a few minutes I’d be actually talking with Santa Claus himself.  My heart was pounding.  I couldn’t stop fidgeting.  I was dressed up in my Sunday clothes, complete with white shirt and clip-on bowtie.

“I kept going over in my mind the entire sequence of the program, which I had memorized over the many broadcasts I had listened to.  Finally, the big moment arrived, and we were led into the recording studio.  An old baby grand piano sat in a corner.  To the right, someone had covered a large window with butcher paper.  There was a semi-circle of six little chairs facing an imposing-looking radio receiver with more dials than I had ever seen in my life.  There was a huge microphone on a stubby stand attached to it.  We were separated from our parents, who had to sit way behind us.

Mike Kane has Santa Claus on the line and has the microphone in place so I can tell Santa my list of Christmas demands.

(Rendering by Richard Lytle)

“There we sat, six quivering lumps of nervousness, facing the very instrument that would allow us to talk to Santa, stretching our necks around to make sure our parents were still in the room.  A few kids were going over their “piece” for Santa, lips moving frantically, snatches of “Jingle Bells” just barely audible.  Then, in came this kindly-looking man who introduced himself as Mike Kane, who we knew was the guy who made it all happened.  Here was the radio wizard who could make contact with Santa himself.  After trying to make all six of us relax (impossible!) and going over how the program worked (all six of us had every single piece of the program burned indelibly in our minds), Mr. Kane hushed everyone for the very serious task at hand.  Like a conductor at a symphony readying the musicians, Mr. Kane turned to the radio set with a look of total concentration and turned it on.  Yellow dials lit up, needles jumped and vibrated.  Everyone swallowed hard…it was about to begin.  He spoke loudly into the microphone.

 “THIS IS WKOK IN SUNBURY, PENNSYLVANIA CALLING STATION S-A-N-T-A AT THE NORTH POLE.  COME IN, PLEASE.

Lots of static.  Some whistling.  More static.  Panic!  He can’t reach Santa Claus!  Something’s happened!  A power line was down at the North Pole.  Snow had buried Santa, the elves, the entire workshop complex.  Hard lumps at throats.  Nervous looks back at parents.  Eyes getting bigger.  But wait, Mr. Kane is re-adjusting his dials.  Maybe he’s adding more power.  That giant antenna next to the model Fort Augusta in front of the studio had to be big enough to pull in the North Pole.  What’ll we do?

“THIS IS WKOK IN SUNBURY, PENNSYLVANIA CALLING STATION S-A-N-T-A AT THE NORTH POLE.  CAN YOU HEAR ME?  COME IN, PLEASE. 

“More static.  But wait, there was just a snatch of tinkly music, like an old music box sitting out in the middle of a blizzard.  Did we really hear it?  Yes, there it is again!  More static.  Everybody was on the edge of their seats.  Mr. Kane was adjusting his dials, coaxing every drop of signal out of the airwaves.  Could he do it?  Everyone held their breath.  The music box again, this time stronger.  It fades but comes quickly back.  The tension is so great that two of the little girls have their legs crossed tight, their mothers having forgotten to take Mr. Kane’s advice to send everyone to the bathroom before the broadcast.  Then, loud and clear, came the voice everyone instantly recognized, a voice so “Santa Claus” you instantly knew it was the real thing.  Mr. Kane could’ve been calling Martians, but if THAT voice had come on, you would’ve known that it could only have been Santa Claus:  the real McCoy, not some drunk wearing a cotton beard riding in the Christmas parade behind the Friendship Hose Company’s Ahrens-Fox pumper fire truck.

“THIS IS STATION S-A-N-T-A AT THE NORTH POLE.  HELLO, MR. KANE… 

“The tension blew out of the studio like air out of a balloon.  We had made contact.  But then another tension took over, even worse that the first.  We all stared to our left at the first kid in the line of chairs, who instantly realized that his moment of reckoning was only seconds away.

“He had beads of sweat on his upper lip, which was pursed tight.  His feet were crossed under the folding chair.  His hands were clasped so tight that his knuckles were white.  The interview began.  He had his list memorized and had a smooth delivery.  He sang “Jingle Bells” with a slight waver and was only off key six times and finished the chorus with a strong upbeat.  Whew.  A good first shot at trying to impress the Old Man himself.  Santa had all the things he wanted right there.  You could hear the toys in the background as Buttons gave them a quick tryout.  Then, to top it off, he had a SILVER STAR by his name in the BIG BOOK.  All this time, he seemed to be winding himself up like a human gramophone spring, sitting more and more upright in the chair until it seemed he would launch himself right over Mr. Kane and land with a sputtering of electrical wires in the middle of the giant receiver.

“ALL RIGHT, MR. KANE.  YES SIR… 

“The kid collapsed back in his chair, convinced that he had just given the performance of his life.  There was a sigh of relief from somewhere behind us.  But there was no break.  Mr. Kane went right on to the next kid.  This girl even beat out the first kid, singling a flawless falsetto version of “Frosty The Snowman” and ending up with the Academy Award of Talking To Santa, a GOLD STAR!  Well, most girls got gold stars, there was no help for it.  She smirked without turning her head.

“Then a break when Santa opened the thick front door to his workshop and to get the weather report from the snowbirds.  This was incredibly important news.  All six of us came to attention.  Snow was more important than Miss Stein’s homework assignments, even more important than Harry Truman!  (I had a vague idea who he was.  My Uncle Dale once told me that “LSMFT” on the bottom of Lucky Strike packs meant “Lord Save Me From Truman.”  Anybody with that kind of moxie HAD to be important.)  There must have been a terrible storm going on.  You could hear the wind howling and blowing.  No wonder Mr. Kane had had such a hard time contacting Santa.  But you could still hear the birds.  Santa responded with concern:

“HMMM.  YOU DON’T SAY.  OH MY, YES.  HMMM… 

“We were dying to find out what they were saying.  It sounded positively awful outside at the North Pole.  Maybe he’d get snowed in.  Maybe the drifts would be so high the reindeer would be buried and wouldn’t be found until spring.  They’d have to postpone Christmas.  But Santa assured everyone that the weather, as horrible as it sounded, was normal fare for the season, and that Christmas was on schedule. 

“With a sigh of relief, all six of us settled back in our chairs.  By now, we were getting to be old hands at this thing, and the next kid, who was sitting next to me on my left, breezed through the interview without a hitch.  But then it was time for another break, this time for the Brownie Band.  We could hear the music and Mr. Kane’s voice talking about Rea & Derrick drug stores, and all the while he was sitting right in front of us.  A miracle!  This Santa Claus thing sure was complicated.  But we never questioned the audacity of putting a commercial right on top of a special concert put on just for us six kids by Santa’s brownies.  These guys were not to be trifled with.  They made the toys.  You should show some respect.  But we all knew that this was the way it always was:  the brownies put on a one-song show, and they plop a crummy commercial right in the middle of it.

“Then, at long last, the Brownie Band faded away, and Mr. Kane pulled his chair right in front of me…”

TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED, LISTEN BY CLICKING BELOW:

  

The Rest of My Letter to Mrs. Smith 

“Well, that’s about as close as I can get to remembering how it all was.  My mother said later that she deeply regretted telling Homer Smith to put that bit in about my bad behavior.  I really believed that the police were going to come for me.  And I absolutely knew that everyone in the whole world was listening to that broadcast and now knew that I was a juvenile delinquent.  And, of course, I was razzed plenty about it the next day is Miss Stein’s first grade class.  But I kept listening every night and especially noted the seemingly endless string of gold star recipients.  And on Christmas Eve, I listened to Santa’s liftoff from the North Pole.

“Did the staff at WKOK know the incredible reality they created in the minds of all those kids, both in the studio and listening at home?  They must have because the level of detail in the execution of that broadcast could only have been accomplished by everyone involved taking their tasks very seriously.  The result was magic:  the blending of adult technology and childhood dreams to create a believable conversation with one of our great cultural mythological heroes.  They truly executed the vision embodied in the famous Baltimore Sun editorial, “Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus.”  We DID talk to Santa in that little studio, and Homer Smith WAS Santa Claus.  I can think of no higher honor in this jaded, cynical world.  Thanks for letting me share it all with you.  Take care and God bless.”

 

Denouemant 

Two weeks after I mailed the letter with the cassette tape, I got a call from Mabel Smith.  She was in tears.  “It’s the first I’ve heard my husband’s voice in years and years.”

I didn’t know what to say.  She said she played the tape over and over again and was worried she was going to break it.  She also volunteered that I was the only person she knew of that still had their 78 rpm record, even though they cut hundreds and hundreds of them over the years.

Later, that got me thinking.  What if I could somehow reach out and find others who still had their records?  We could stitch them together and re-create an entire program as it was in the 1950s.  Well, at least  the interviews.  I contacted the Sunbury Daily Item and a tourism magazine called Susquehanna Life.  Both were less than enthused. There HAS to be at least one other person out there who saved their record.  I can’t believe I’m the only one left standing.  Send me a note before it’s too late.

The rest of the story?  The people and places are all gone.  Santa Claus passed away in 1991.  Mrs. Smith, wife of Santa Claus and station manager during those golden years, died in 2016 at the age of 99 1/2.  WKOK moved the studio across the river and up on top of Blue Hill and sank into the miasma of “talk radio,” a sad but understandable reflection of our narcissist world in which opinionated morons babble without end to other opinionated morons who hang on every word when they’re not staring into their smart phones.

The program is still going, although in a vastly different format that’s sort of hard to explain.  It’s best to watch a parent-made video:

I give the radio station credit for hanging on to a Christmas tradition in the face of insane political correctness where the word is either banned outright or substituted with “holiday” and where Christmas carols are verboten on the radio.  I’m sure that Santa Claus is soon to be whitewashed to “Holiday Man.”  When I talked with Santa in 1952, the mantra was “put the Christ back in Christmas.”  Good luck with that.

So I guess it’s up to me to shoot arrows into the storm:  I make no apologies for having once talked to Santa Claus, the real deal of Christmas for my generation.