while normal americans spend the weeks leading up to christmas by searching for the perfect gifts for their loved ones, i spend that time wishing and hoping and thinking and praying for a story about a department-store santa, a christmas-tree farmer or a toymaker to share with my readers at christmastime.
it's the same kind of thrill i get when a politician dies on election day or close enough to election day that the obit runs the same day as election results. or when a military veteran's obit can run on memorial day or veteran's day. or a professional baseball player during the world series.
the dark side of my fixation is that these subjects, whose stories are so much fun to share at such appropriate times, have to be dead. don't get me wrong. i know that i have no power - short of murder - to make someone die on cue. but i do feel guilty, when i get what i wish for.
yesterday, i got a rush, then felt guilty for getting that rush, when i learned that
john lahoski, who dressed up as an elf for a local holiday train program, inspired by the "polar express" story, had died.
not only that, he apparently suffered a fatal heart attack while helping decorate a public place with holiday candles - en route to his elf gig.
i'll be working on christmas eve, writing obits to run in the plain dealer on christmas day. i'm still hoping for a department-store santa.
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