By Kathy Kassnel '66

He leaned over as far as he could to see to the head of the line and because he still had quite a long wait, he decided to go over his speech once again. He had said it to himself at least 10 times in the last 20 minutes, but he had to be sure not to leave anything out.

His jacket had been hanging over his arm as the building had gotten quite warm. His hands were wet and his face flushed, but his brown eyes were wide open with anticipation. He had waited for this moment for what seemed to him to be ages. For many days all of his thoughts had been centered around this one great event.

The person in back of him pushed him, and he saw that the line had moved up considerably during his speech rehearsal. He jumped forward to close the gap between him and the person in front of him. Once again he leaned over and, shocked, he saw that he was almost there. His heart gave a startled thump and he thought for a moment he wouldn't be able to go through with it. But it was too late to back out now. He was next!

He stepped forward and, in spite of all his rehearsals, he could only muster a weak, "Hi, Santa Claus" when the jolly man spoke to him.