June 2003 - DeVere at Large Remembering "I remember," young son remembered. I remember, too, I replied. The lights were set. The two cameras were in place, one for medium to wide shots, the other for the essential close-up, "the pay-off." The talent - "Santa" and the two-year-old kid - were ready. The set couldn't have been better - the living room of one of Savannah's elegant bed and breakfast inns, all decked out for Christmas, even though it was just October. Nor could the cast of two. I knew I had the real Santa, North Pole passport and all. And the kid. Well, he was my kid, so obviously, he was perfect. And cheap. We had 30 seconds to make Christmas magic for Oglethorpe Mall, the client. The concept was simple. Camera moves in on Santa and the kid in his lap. Kid, with Santa's help, opens a small box in the kid's lap. A light beam leaps out of the box (60 watt bulb lodged between Santa's feet) to reveal a startled but happy kid, a knowing Santa, and a close-up of the Oglethorpe Mall's logo inside the box, etched in glass. A little bit of "2001: A Space Odyssey" on a minimal budget. But we learned when the television spot ran, it made people cry. A happy cry, a Christmas cry. The kid (my kid) along with my other kid (his sister) went on to "star" in other commercials, but that Christmas piece was the only time I got to direct Santa. He was such a pro. In all 15(!) or so takes, he was always "Santa." Even when the kid wet his diapers (considering the proximity of the 60 watt bulb, I considered issuing "combat pay"). Makeup may have mopped his head a few times, but nothing rattled him. Santa was cucumber cool. A few years later, "Santa" and I were asked to tell scary stories on Halloween eve at the mid-18th century Stoney-Baynard ruins in Sea Pines. I was the warm-up act and told a pretty scary story about how Spanish moss earned its name. When I got to the punch line - a Spanish pirate gets his beard caught up in a live oak, his feet dangling, over on Spanish Wells - kids held on to their mothers. But then came the main act. No longer "Santa," the guy in the white beard (he looked like a cross between "Papa"Hemingway and Burl Ives) told the tragic love story of the "Blue Lady"of Harbour Town fame and of the numerous Elliot ghosts that haunted Dolphin Head in Hilton Head Plantation. It was like he was there. Like we were all there. As he colorfully told the stories, the audience got colorfully terrified, because you would swear (I swore!) that the Blue Lady was in our midst, beckoning. "I remember being real scared!" dear daughter remembers. I remember, too. That guy could tell stories-and write them. When he hit Hilton Head in the early 60s, he began writing the island's story. He never stopped. Fast forward several years. The guy with the white beard is about to "retire" from the newspaper business. My bride, who had known him for about three decades, was helping with the move. He had about a boxcar of books in his office that he wanted to get rid of - mostly dated science fiction. But there was a rather complete collection of somewhat dog-eared Dickens, several Dumas, and four volumes of Will Roger's Daily Telegraph. So my beloved (who can rip through a Dostoevsky novel in two sittings), with the help of our two offspring and me, volunteered to cart the boxes home. "Taking these books will sure save my back. Which reminds me of a story..." And the white-bearded guy began to spin gold. He told tales all his life. And he wrote them. He wrote just about everything, every day. If someone had kept a word count, my guess is that he would be in Isaac Asimov's league (depending on who's counting, Asimov published over 400 books). This past April, the writer with the white beard, Jim Littlejohn, died. Which, as is always the case, doesn't seem fair. He still had stories to tell. By my count, he had 6,456 we hadn't heard or read. He still owes us big time (as we do his memory). I mean to collect, friend. Somehow.