Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
Speaker 1: And we continue now with part two of our conversation
Speaker 1: with Pat Cook, right after these brief messages from our
Speaker 1: Genner sponsors. So your dad was Santa Claus until nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight, is what you said? Four?
Speaker 2: My brother passed away in eighty three, and he passed
Speaker 2: away in eighty four.
Speaker 1: Well, Santa Claus may pass but Christmas doesn't. And I
Speaker 1: guess that's where Pat becomes Mss Clause, our chief l
Speaker 1: for what happens. Tell you weren't going to let this
Speaker 1: legacy of children's letters coming to Santa Claus, Indiana die
Speaker 1: with your father, And in fact, everything you've done since then,
Speaker 1: in a beautiful way, honors your father's legacy because had
Speaker 1: he not picked up the first bag in his car
Speaker 1: from the first postmaster and decided these letters weren't going
Speaker 1: to go unanswered, this thing wouldn't have started. But I
Speaker 1: guess you picked it up. Is that how it worked?
Speaker 2: Yes? Actually I started when I was probably twelve years old.
Speaker 2: My brother and I had a little problem with dad
Speaker 2: being Santa but we believed in Santa Claus. We just
Speaker 2: thought he was Santa Claus and everybody.
Speaker 1: Why not, Why wouldn't you. I mean, that's your childhood,
Speaker 1: right right.
Speaker 2: I mean I grew up with bells and suits and
Speaker 2: boots and slaves and all of that. And we'd come
Speaker 2: to the grade school. I want that little girl with
Speaker 2: the brown eyes in the front row to sing a
Speaker 2: song for me, which is he'd always do that, always
Speaker 2: had to sing a song. But anyway, Yes, he passed
Speaker 2: away in eighty four, and the last time he was
Speaker 2: Santa Claus he was at the park became Holiday World
Speaker 2: in eighty three or eighty four, one of those years.
Speaker 2: I'm bad with numbers. He was Santa there as it
Speaker 2: was Santa claus Land and now Holiday World and has
Speaker 2: grown much, very very big. So he was on stage
Speaker 2: when they were issuing a first issue stamp at Santa
Speaker 2: Claus behind the scenes with him. He was he was
Speaker 2: ninety and he walked out on the stage. He always
Speaker 2: rang his bells and said a big hope, hope, hope.
Speaker 2: The whole whole theater stood on their hands, stood up
Speaker 2: and clapped, I think, and just to honor him and
Speaker 2: as old as he was. And that was the last
Speaker 2: time he appeared at Santa and it was. It made
Speaker 2: me cry. But the thing he told me as I
Speaker 2: was taking care of him in his old age, Pat,
Speaker 2: don't let the people put in the paper that Santa
Speaker 2: Claus died. I was Santa Claus. But somebody will carry
Speaker 2: on and Santa Claus is forever. And they did not
Speaker 2: put that in the paper. And I did, you know,
Speaker 2: that's a good thing, but.
Speaker 1: At that time, so you pick it and you picked
Speaker 1: it up from there.
Speaker 2: Well, I've never been Santa Claus, but I have a
Speaker 2: book called Santa's Daughter, and I'm in a Santa Claus
Speaker 2: suit on the front of that book. But what I
Speaker 2: did do was carry on the letter writing, which I
Speaker 2: started helping him when I was about twelve. And of
Speaker 2: course the ten years I was gone, I didn't do it.
Speaker 2: Came back and immediately picked it up again. And then
Speaker 2: at some point it is organized into the Santazel's Incorporated
Speaker 2: because Bill it has become. We did this past season
Speaker 2: we called from Thanksgiving to Christmas over twenty three thousand letters.
Speaker 1: We'll see three thousand letters that have to be answered.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and some years it's thirty thousand.
Speaker 1: And the post must have you must have literally an
Speaker 1: army of folks. I know it's I know it's a
Speaker 1: little shameless plug, but you must have an army of
Speaker 1: folks answering these letters in and around your town.
Speaker 2: We have volunteers and they're wonderful. And we have some
Speaker 2: people that come every day. We have some people who
Speaker 2: come once. We have people who come twice a week.
Speaker 2: We have some groups that come after work maybe. And
Speaker 2: we are in a little room that only holds fourteen people,
Speaker 2: but we're very organized.
Speaker 1: And how does it work If my kid, when my
Speaker 1: kid was he's five years old, from Memphis, back when
Speaker 1: one of them was five, if they wrote a letter
Speaker 1: to Santa Claus and put a stamp on it, does
Speaker 1: it just get to you guys? Somehow does the post
Speaker 1: office honor that tradition? How does it work? That's how
Speaker 1: it works, no kidding.
Speaker 2: It works if it says the guy in the big
Speaker 2: red suit, if it says north Pole, you know it's
Speaker 2: that Christmas season. If we could be that way all
Speaker 2: year long, wouldn't it be wonderful? I mean, everybody along
Speaker 2: the way will add an address, will add PO Box one,
Speaker 2: Santa Claus, Indiana, or they will they help. It's an
Speaker 2: amazing phenomenon. And when you asked about the army this,
Speaker 2: I have a well, my daughter and her daughter, so
Speaker 2: it's there helping. We usually start early before Thanksgiving so
Speaker 2: that we don't get a big backlog. But I have
Speaker 2: to tell you we have four form letters, plus the
Speaker 2: letter my father wrote long ago, but it's incursive, so
Speaker 2: we can't always use that. But we have letters that
Speaker 2: are a dear friend, dear little friend, Merry Christmas, and
Speaker 2: dear and they have certain messages in them. Every letter
Speaker 2: that comes from the child is opened, it is read,
Speaker 2: then the volunteer picks the letter that they think would
Speaker 2: be best for that child. They put the child's name
Speaker 2: in the salutation dear friend, susy Hammah, and then at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the letter they put a personal note
Speaker 2: message that picks up from something in their letter, so
Speaker 2: they know Santa read it. Like if they say, my
Speaker 2: sister and I had a fight yesterday and I hate her.
Speaker 2: Santa wants you to love your sister. Please be good
Speaker 2: to your sister. The child knows that Santa read their letter.
Speaker 2: So it doesn't mean everybody sits down and writes a
Speaker 2: whole letter, because that's impossible. We tried to email one year.
Speaker 2: It doesn't work. I won't do that because it just
Speaker 2: says the name, the age, and what they want and
Speaker 2: we want a letter because that child learns to write
Speaker 2: a letter. A child, they pour out their hearts in
Speaker 2: those letters.
Speaker 1: What does it you know? Listen as a father for five,
Speaker 1: six and seven year olds will say things that absolutely
Speaker 1: floor you that you're like, where did that come from?
Speaker 1: And it reminds me of like when in kindergarten first
Speaker 1: grade the teachers would send home artwork or little things
Speaker 1: that the kids said or whatever, and you read them
Speaker 1: and it's just like, what, how does my child even
Speaker 1: know that? So given that kind of background as a dad,
Speaker 1: I mean, I can only imagine what's written in some
Speaker 1: of these letters. And I'm sure some of them are funny,
Speaker 1: but I also got to I think some of them
Speaker 1: are just heartbreaking. And what do you hear in these letters?
Speaker 1: Give us a sense of what you're happening when you're reading.
Speaker 2: I'll start with sad and andy with funny. We have,
Speaker 2: as I said, a book. It's from nineteen thirty to
Speaker 2: nineteen I can't remember. We need another book, but it's
Speaker 2: a history of toys children, how they wrote, what they wanted.
Speaker 2: If you see that book the letters, Yes, we cry,
Speaker 2: we laugh. We do not say ever ever, and I
Speaker 2: have rules. You never say Santa will send you the
Speaker 2: you wanted puppy, you'll get a puppy. No, no, no no.
Speaker 2: We never mentioned what they ask for because we don't
Speaker 2: know and we're not going to promise something. But they
Speaker 2: will say things like my grandma's dying of cancer, Santa,
Speaker 2: can you send some love to my grandma? Or I'm
Speaker 2: living with my dad, I want to live with my mom,
Speaker 2: or you know, just things like that, family, things that
Speaker 2: make you very very sad. One little boy said, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not very smart, but I wish people wouldn't think
Speaker 2: that I'm dumb. One child wrote, my mother works so much.
Speaker 2: I know she's doing it for us, but I wish
Speaker 2: she'd be home with us more. They really do. They
Speaker 2: do tell us so many things, and we share that
Speaker 2: because that's I think. That's what If people come in
Speaker 2: one day to do one letter, they say they're hooked,
Speaker 2: and they come back because you feel like you're really
Speaker 2: doing and some mother send us pictures of the child
Speaker 2: opening the letter. The letter has my father's picture on
Speaker 2: it in a sleigh in Santa Claus and even the
Speaker 2: envelope has his picture on it, so they're no, it's
Speaker 2: coming from Santa. And then they get a special stamp
Speaker 2: on it at the post office that it has changed
Speaker 2: every year. There's a contest in school for artists student
Speaker 2: artists to paint as it has a name, but it's
Speaker 2: a big stamp that cancels that and it's always very
Speaker 2: Christmas Eve. So that's the other part. We have to
Speaker 2: sit down, we have to open the letters. No, the
Speaker 2: man that gets the mail opens them. He puts families together,
Speaker 2: so if there's three kids in the family, you had
Speaker 2: four four kids in the family, he staples those together.
Speaker 2: So we are sure that each child gets a different letter,
Speaker 2: that we don't send the same letter to four kids.
Speaker 2: We're very careful about all of that.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. So I mean, in a sense,
Speaker 1: you're being Santa Claus and answering Santa Claus letter and
Speaker 1: the spirit of Christmas and everything, But in some of
Speaker 1: the letters you're talking about, you're also just trying to
Speaker 1: reassure a child that there's love in the world.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Santa loves you. Our missus Klaus sends love
Speaker 2: the elves are so busy working, but they are doing
Speaker 2: it because they are hoping you have a wonderful Christmas.
Speaker 2: We do spend a lot of time. I ask, what
Speaker 2: do you think I should say to this? Of course
Speaker 2: I've done it so long that it's not hard to
Speaker 2: think of something to say. But the funny ones, the
Speaker 2: great ones, and you'll I hope you'll really enjoy this
Speaker 2: as much as I did. This little boy said, Dear Santa,
Speaker 2: please make my dad smarter.
Speaker 1: What do you say to that? Sorry, your dad's a dumbo.
Speaker 1: We did the best. We could send another letter next year.
Speaker 1: We'll try to give you what you want.
Speaker 2: We got a letter from a child and I saw
Speaker 2: that it had something in it. Now we get gum drops,
Speaker 2: we get chewing gum, We get candy, we get pictures,
Speaker 2: wedding pictures, we get the shopping list. We get the
Speaker 2: bill from the plumber. But this child I opened it. No,
Speaker 2: it was opened. This man gets the mail every morning,
Speaker 2: goes through it, puts it together. As I told you,
Speaker 2: they go in stacks of local oh, by the way,
Speaker 2: from all the countries in the world.
Speaker 1: We get letters every Yeah, I was I was going
Speaker 1: to ask you do you get them from you don't
Speaker 1: just get them from the United States.
Speaker 2: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Germany.
Speaker 1: Did you get any this year from children from Ukraine?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Did any of them say would you make them stop
Speaker 1: fighting or any of that kind of thing? Yeah?
Speaker 2: No, But we have always gotten letters from Russia. Last
Speaker 2: year those letters were returned, were returned, They were not
Speaker 2: given to the children. They were not they were not.
Speaker 1: The Russian government wouldn't allow your letters to get to
Speaker 1: the Russian children.
Speaker 2: I'm supposing. Yeah, there you go again with the army
Speaker 2: of people. We have a couple that live in jasper In,
Speaker 2: about half an hour away, and that is their ministry
Speaker 2: to answer the foreign learners. Now that postage is a
Speaker 2: dollar in something. Our postage bill is eighteen to twenty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a year, and that is covered by donations
Speaker 2: if possible, and just get it done.
Speaker 1: So twenty thousand to twenty three thousand to thirty thousand
Speaker 1: letters a year. How many people are volunteering to answer
Speaker 1: all of these letters or and it's not really an organization,
Speaker 1: it's for your city and your community and your culture.
Speaker 1: How many people are doing it? Well?
Speaker 2: You know, when people ask that question, I guess someday
Speaker 2: I need to count. I don't know. We have a room.
Speaker 2: It's the back room of that original post office building.
Speaker 2: It has one table for eight and another table that
Speaker 2: would seat six, so it's people fourteen people can sit.
Speaker 2: As I said, it's we have become an electronic world
Speaker 2: like you're Alex knows and I don't, but our wonderful director.
Speaker 2: At this point, Kathleen started sign up Genius, so if
Speaker 2: somebody wants to volunteer to do letters, they will sign
Speaker 2: up on sign up Genius. And she knows then on
Speaker 2: December twelfth, we already have ten people, or she knows
Speaker 2: that on December thirteenth, we only have two, so can
Speaker 2: you come on December thirteenth. So's it's getting better and
Speaker 2: better organized all the time, so that we have consistency.
Speaker 2: And I'm called the chief help. Yes, and I'm.
Speaker 1: Very picul about the I'm very.
Speaker 2: Particular about those letters because they have to be done
Speaker 2: with respect, and we can't say something stupid or silly,
Speaker 2: and we did have that happened one time. Somebody can't say, well,
Speaker 2: you don't believe this, do you, because somebody did and
Speaker 2: the mother called it back. Really, to my knowledge, just
Speaker 2: once but I go through at random letters just to
Speaker 2: be sure that they're all being done with respect and properly.
Speaker 2: So this army of people, what happened this year? It
Speaker 2: was God bless the post office department. The post office
Speaker 2: in Santa Claus is overwhelmed because people come here to
Speaker 2: get that special stamp for their Christmas cards and their
Speaker 2: Christmas letters, and then we come in with boxes full
Speaker 2: of letters to go out by two o'clock in the afternoon.
Speaker 2: They have to be there ready to go, and so
Speaker 2: they're so overwhelmed. But the post office department this year
Speaker 2: was really behind. I don't know if it was I
Speaker 2: understood COVID. And then well, on the twenty ninth, we
Speaker 2: usually have a date we call it cutoff date because
Speaker 2: the letters will not get to the child before Christmas
Speaker 2: if we mail them out, say on the twenty third,
Speaker 2: and it's going to Oregon or Montana, right, so we
Speaker 2: have to have a cutoff date. Well, we were getting
Speaker 2: letters on the twenty ninth that had been mailed on
Speaker 2: the thirteenth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, unfortunately, I think a lot of people have experienced
Speaker 1: that with the post office since COVID.
Speaker 2: So we have gotten our director said, I'm going to
Speaker 2: design a postcard that's going to be cheaper for us,
Speaker 2: so the child will receive a pretty Christmas e postcard.
Speaker 1: Saint.
Speaker 2: Your letter arrived after Santa had gone back to the
Speaker 2: North Pole. We're very sorry.
Speaker 1: We hope you have.
Speaker 2: A merry Christmas, but we can't any very Christmas letter
Speaker 2: out to somebody that's not going to get it until
Speaker 2: after Christmas.
Speaker 1: This is a whole it's a whole shooting match organization.
Speaker 1: You guys got going on there to answer all these letters. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: So at what point during this entire process of reassuring kids,
Speaker 1: of giving kids love, of trying to make sure children
Speaker 1: who want to write to Santa Claus get an answer
Speaker 1: from Santa Claus Indiana which is all idyllic and fairy telly,
Speaker 1: but it's real and it's so heartwarming, did you decide
Speaker 1: Santa Claus needs a Santa Claus Museum.
Speaker 2: Well, it was in two thousand and six, and I
Speaker 2: look back at that and it's twenty four. That's been
Speaker 2: eighteen years ago. I suddenly realized as I got older,
Speaker 2: many people didn't know how the town was named, or
Speaker 2: why it was named, or who lived here, who were
Speaker 2: our first inhabitants, who built this little town? Where did
Speaker 2: they come from? How did Santa claus Land start? My
Speaker 2: husband and I created a gated community called Christmas Lake
Speaker 2: Village in order to draw people in, to help grow
Speaker 2: the community, so that we'd have better schools, and so
Speaker 2: that we would have more population if the county was
Speaker 2: dying and it needed help. All those things, all those
Speaker 2: things went into old people would say. Christmas Lake that
Speaker 2: we developed has a very large lake, two small lakes,
Speaker 2: a golf course, tennis courts, playground areas, it's gated, and
Speaker 2: it's beautiful, and it brought people to live there, especially
Speaker 2: now we have so many people from California all over.
Speaker 2: It's just amazing because we're in a little pocket of
Speaker 2: the world here. It's just a little different.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying it's perfect, No, not at all. There's crime,
Speaker 2: but not hugely so, and it's an idyllic kind of place.
Speaker 2: And I'm hoping to write the history of all that.
Speaker 2: That's why I started the museum, to preserve that history
Speaker 2: of the town, of the village, of the park of
Speaker 2: Christmas Lake, so that some time after I'm gone, that
Speaker 2: will still live on and people will have the truth
Speaker 2: about things, because you know, if you don't have that
Speaker 2: document saying how the town was named, there's a legend
Speaker 2: that's beautiful, but it's not the truth.
Speaker 1: And your museum straightens that out. Yes, so is because
Speaker 1: it's called Santa Claus and it's got Christmas Lake, and
Speaker 1: obviously the Christmas theme that is permeating the culture. Is
Speaker 1: it Christmas all the time there?
Speaker 2: Well, everything is Christmas y and that's okay. We're still growing.
Speaker 2: We're just a small town to twenty five hundred. Maybe
Speaker 2: that's because of the village and we have now two
Speaker 2: high schools in the county and several elementary schools that
Speaker 2: are very good. By the way, my goal is to
Speaker 2: retain the small town wonderful atmosphere or culture that exists there.
Speaker 2: Go to the high school basketball games and cheer on
Speaker 2: the team no matter how old or or how long
Speaker 2: it was since you've graduated, have turtle soup parties and
Speaker 2: have it. You know, it's it's that small town stuff
Speaker 2: that I think really binds people together and creates a
Speaker 2: special kind of culture. So like for my museum, it's
Speaker 2: very quaint. It has the original post office, it has
Speaker 2: the original church which was eighteen eighty with all the original.
Speaker 2: Everything in it is original, absolutely beautiful, with the kerosene
Speaker 2: lamps and the organ that you had to pump with
Speaker 2: your feet to make it go. And we had a
Speaker 2: program this year and I sang Silent Night in German
Speaker 2: and two people came up to me and said, now
Speaker 2: I really feel the spirit of Christmas in that little
Speaker 2: church in the dark with those lamps. Schilenacht in German
Speaker 2: is pretty special. That special feeling I think, not neon,
Speaker 2: not glittery stuff. Well, we have Christmas lights all over
Speaker 2: all the time. But you understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do. I do, And I can't think of
Speaker 1: any better person with any greater perspective to be answering
Speaker 1: the cause of children for all of the world to
Speaker 1: Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: I dedicate my life to it in November December as
Speaker 2: my daughter and her daughters. She has three daughters and
Speaker 2: they've grown up helping. We don't allow the letters to
Speaker 2: leave the yron the post office because you have to
Speaker 2: be very careful because of the culture today that somebody
Speaker 2: doesn't get a hold of an address or a name.
Speaker 2: So we do everything there. But I'm very proud of
Speaker 2: the fact that they have been very involved. And my
Speaker 2: other daughter is in an Annapolis, which is of course
Speaker 2: the state capital, and she and her daughter came down
Speaker 2: and spent a weekend and helped. I forgot to say
Speaker 2: that teachers love to use this as a method of
Speaker 2: teaching children to write letters. We get big boxes of
Speaker 2: one hundred letters from a grade school.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable. We'll be right back the show as an army
Speaker 1: of normal folks. And we have covered a lot of
Speaker 1: heavy topics here and then lighter topics. And this is
Speaker 1: such a feel good, warm topic story. One of the
Speaker 1: things I hear a lot that really frustrates me. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't frustrate me if the people had ask it.
Speaker 1: It frustrates me sometimes because I'm not sure. I always
Speaker 1: have a great answer. And the question is I love
Speaker 1: that story, I love her story, his story. I love
Speaker 1: the podcast about this person or that person what they're doing,
Speaker 1: and it's so inspiring and it makes me want to
Speaker 1: get involved, but I just don't know how. And I
Speaker 1: get people's inhibitions. I get people's reticence, I get people's
Speaker 1: reluctance and fears, and unfortunately in our society, I get
Speaker 1: people's desire, not desire, but inclination to withdraw from a
Speaker 1: fear of being judged or a fear of being seen
Speaker 1: in one way or another. And in my estimation, those reticence,
Speaker 1: that reluctance, that fear prohibits personal growth and most importantly,
Speaker 1: prohibits this army of normal folks seeing areas of need
Speaker 1: and filling it. Pat you're ninety two and a half.
Speaker 2: You come from I can celebrate my ninetieth birthday because
Speaker 2: it was during COVID.
Speaker 1: You're ninety two and a half. You're the daughter of
Speaker 1: a father who served in World War One, who built
Speaker 1: boats that served our country in World War Two, who
Speaker 1: stopped by the postmaster not long after the Great Depression
Speaker 1: because he had a heart to answer children's letters, who
Speaker 1: simply wanted love or boots or food, whose legacy is
Speaker 1: now literally almost one hundred years later. What do you
Speaker 1: say to someone with all of your experience and all
Speaker 1: of the legacy from your father to you, to now
Speaker 1: your daughters, and to what you're doing to put a
Speaker 1: smile on a child's face from as far away as
Speaker 1: Russia and China and the Ukraine by simply taking the
Speaker 1: time to answer a letter. They wrote to Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: What do you say to somebody who says, I really
Speaker 1: want to do something good, but I don't know how.
Speaker 2: I really want to do something good. I say, take
Speaker 2: a risk, do it.
Speaker 1: Just step out there.
Speaker 2: Huh, yes, get out there, but research it. Be sure
Speaker 2: it's real. You know what I mean about that, that
Speaker 2: the money is being used properly or whatever you're going
Speaker 2: to try to do. Who are the people involved, how's
Speaker 2: it being run? All those sorts of things. But that's
Speaker 2: if you don't do that, that's good, things aren't going
Speaker 2: to keep happening. I think we have to be willing,
Speaker 2: as you said, to look foolish. Why in the world
Speaker 2: are you sitting here doing this to make mistakes, but
Speaker 2: to give and keep giving and keep giving and keep
Speaker 2: giving and the happiness and that's see, that's when my
Speaker 2: dad saw. My dad saw the joy in those children's
Speaker 2: eyes when he was Santa on that ship in nineteen fourteen. Uh,
Speaker 2: and that cost that ripple of stuff that happened and
Speaker 2: made him Santa Jim all his life. People say, oh,
Speaker 2: he was the real Santa. He was Santa he knew
Speaker 2: several languages. I mean, I could you know I loved
Speaker 2: him so much, and I have him in the in
Speaker 2: the museum. I saved everything about him, his suit, his boots,
Speaker 2: his big belt, his cane, his mittens, the book he
Speaker 2: read from the nine before Christmas that he had paper
Speaker 2: clips in where to bread to the children. And he's
Speaker 2: sitting there behind a mural that was in Santa claus Land.
Speaker 2: So you know, they come up and they say, that's
Speaker 2: the way I saw it when I was a little kid.
Speaker 2: So there's just so many ways to make people happy.
Speaker 2: And it's it, I know, And you know that you're
Speaker 2: rewarded one hundred times over.
Speaker 1: I have said that every single time, and I love that.
Speaker 1: I didn't have to be the one who said it,
Speaker 1: but you said it. And honestly, Pat, what your response
Speaker 1: was is not at all surprising. Take a risk from
Speaker 1: a sixteen year old who wanted more education and got
Speaker 1: out a bus and showed up somewhere because she wanted
Speaker 1: to expand her education to come full circle to the
Speaker 1: unbelievable life you've led, I guess take a risk is
Speaker 1: just second nature to Pat Cook.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I keep saying it's wonderful to grow old
Speaker 2: because now it doesn't matter what somebody thinks.
Speaker 1: Okay, I got one more question. I'm going to throw
Speaker 1: you a softball and we're going to end with it.
Speaker 1: We live in ever increasingly difficult times. We have geopolitical issues,
Speaker 1: we have the and we're not going to get into
Speaker 1: the politics of it. But the fact is we have
Speaker 1: three things going on in the Middle East with Israel
Speaker 1: and Palestine and Syria, and with the Huthis. We've got
Speaker 1: the Russia Ukraine thing. We've got really domestic discord politically
Speaker 1: where none of the front runners have more than forty
Speaker 1: five percent of approval rating, which says a lot about
Speaker 1: the division. We now have media outlets who are heavily
Speaker 1: incented by power and money to continue to craft narratives
Speaker 1: that divide us that are often inaccurate. I think we
Speaker 1: are surrounded by a lot of people who have a
Speaker 1: lot of power and gain and control power by continuing
Speaker 1: to scare us by the boogeyman from one side of
Speaker 1: the aisle of the other. And we have arguments and
Speaker 1: concerns over global warming and what's causing it. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I really can go on and on about all of
Speaker 1: the things that face we humans today and could argue
Speaker 1: that some of them teeter on being existential. But I
Speaker 1: can also tell you at Christmas time, when I'm with
Speaker 1: my children and my wife, it doesn't seem to matter
Speaker 1: quite as much. But there are skeptics out there who
Speaker 1: will say the spirit of Christmas is fast us. What
Speaker 1: do you say to that path.
Speaker 2: The Spirit of Christmas is forever, and it will live
Speaker 2: forever because good overcomes evil.
Speaker 1: I love that, pat and I'll tell you this. I
Speaker 1: love the fact that they're twenty three thirty thousand children
Speaker 1: every single year that write a letter to Santa Claus,
Speaker 1: often not about getting a game Boy, but more about
Speaker 1: wanting something for their siblings or their parents who there's
Speaker 1: an army of volunteers in a little place called Santa Claus,
Speaker 1: Indiana that put a smile on the face of a
Speaker 1: child at Christmas time and reassure them that they're being
Speaker 1: heard and loved. And that is the spirit of Christmas?
Speaker 1: Is it not?
Speaker 2: It is? It is? I have a plaque on it
Speaker 2: says keep the Spirit of Christmas all here long. Wouldn't that? See?
Speaker 2: All this would be over if we had the spirit
Speaker 2: of Christmas all the time, because we're happy and we're cheerful,
Speaker 2: and we're giving and we're caring, and we're outside of
Speaker 2: ourselves and especially with children. If we could do that,
Speaker 2: it would be a wonderful world.
Speaker 1: Said from the Chief Elf from Santa Claus, Indiana to
Speaker 1: her and her army of elves, put smiles on children's
Speaker 1: faces across the globe at Christmas time. That Cook, you
Speaker 1: are phenomenal and I just really can't wait to see
Speaker 1: what you're doing in fifteen or twenty years from now,
Speaker 1: because you have so much more work to do.
Speaker 2: I do, That's what I say. I have to keep.
Speaker 2: I have so much to do, very.
Speaker 1: Very big, Pat. It has been an absolutely pleasure. Thank
Speaker 1: you for joining me and in the middle of a year,
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas Path.
Speaker 2: Merry Christmas to you, keep the spirit and believe, believe,
Speaker 2: keep believing.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Pat, and thank you for joining us this week.
Speaker 1: If Pat Cook or another guest has inspired you in general,
Speaker 1: or better yet, to take action, please let me know.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear about it. You can write me
Speaker 1: anytime at Bill at Normalfolks dot us and I will respond.
Speaker 1: And if you enjoyed this episode, please share with friends
Speaker 1: and on social subscribe to our podcast, rate and review it,
Speaker 1: become a premium member at Normalfolks dot us. All these
Speaker 1: things that will help us grow an army of normal folks.
Speaker 1: I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week.