Santa Claus and Frankel City

It was a raw, cold night in the Permian Basin of West Texas on Christmas Eve of 1963. The wind was blowing about two puffs short of a gale and the heater in my old pickup was having to work hard to keep up. I had finished my Christmas shopping in the town of Odessa and was just coming up on the crossroads where Frankel City used to be.Thirty years earlier the oil boom had resulted in oil camps on the local ranches to house the oilfield workers and Frankel City was born to serve the workforce. Two filling stations, welding works, cafe, grocery store, post office and two oil field supply houses made up Frankel City and they had served us well.

When the 1960's came around, the boom times were history and the field had changed to full production and a more stable workforce. As a result, the oil companies closed the camps and the families once housed there moved to towns in the area.Naturally the need for the town of Frankel City disappeared. All the businesses closed and the buildings were bulldozed back to the West Texas soil.

So here I was approaching the crossroads where Wetzel's filling station once thrived but was now gone.I might add here that after Christmas shopping in Odessa I had treated myself to a few shots of Jack Daniels at the county line bar. Just as I was ready to make a sharp right turn, I saw a chubby feller with white hair and beard in a Santa Claus suit waving his arms and standing next to what appeared to be a red sleigh. The runners on the sleigh were buried in deep sand that had collected since the removal of the gas station. Now at the time I was tempted to blame this all on fatigue and Jack Daniels, but then I saw the reindeer. A finer looking group of animals would be hard to imagine and they were clearly foreign to our land of mesquite and shinnery.

I pulled over, rolled down my window and stared. Not knowing what else to say, I managed a weak "Merry Christmas" and hoped all this wasn't the Jack Daniels after all. To my surprise the gent strolled over and said,"I am truly glad to see you, sir. Might I sit in your pickup with the heater and thaw myself a bit?"

He climbed in and rubbed his hands in front of the heater vent and made a kind of purring sound.I said, " I sort of expected a ho-ho-ho, seeing as how you've gotta be Santa Claus." He chuckled a bit and said,"As soon as I warm up a little, perhaps you can help me get the skids out of the sand dune and I'll be on my way back to the North Pole."

He continued," While we wait, I'll tell you the story of why I'm here and how upset I am that Frankel City is suddenly gone! For many years now I've made this my last stop before returning to the North Pole.I know the folks who ran the businesses and they were always eager to help me restore after the long night and prepare to return to the North. The Perrins helped me repair many a damaged skid and the Blanchards, Wetzels and Carrigans all offered nourishment and warmth and kept my little secret for all these years.

"You see my calling is the happiness of little boys and girls and one does not ignore one's calling. On the other hand, my love is the life of a cowboy and West Texas feels like home to me. I watched from around 1820 how this land was settled and it has become a part of me. I used Frankel City as the last stop on Christmas eve to have its memory fresh in my mind at home for the "off season".Once in awhile I am able to slip away unnoticed and come to your area to participate in a rodeo or two incognito. That satisfies my soul like nothing else these days."

Well now I was astonished to say the least. We all love this area, but it never occurred to me that outsiders might see the same things that we see. After he'd warmed himself a little, I threw a chain around the sleigh's skids and hauled him out to the blacktop. He came over, shook my hand, climbed aboard his sleigh, called out the reindeer's names (Rudolph wasn't with them !), gave the command "On" and was airborn. He never said "To all a good night" and I figgered it was because there was no more "all" in Frankel City.

I never told anyone this story first of all because of our reputation in Texas for telling tall tales and secondly because of the Jack Daniels and was I really sure all that actually happened. This past Spring I attended a rodeo in Odessa and I was watching a bullrider getting ready in the chute and he looked up at me and winked. I thought that coudn't be Santa in disguise, but then again bullriders don't normally wink at me!

Then as the rodeo was about over, a young boy handed me a note that came from one of the cowboys. It said simply. " Thanks for the help...don't forget Frankel City."

Comments