By Jim Greenleaf
It was Christmas Eve in 1997 and my dad, Jerry, had been in pretty bad shape as a result of intense chemo treatments for throat cancer.
The prognosis was not encouraging so my wife, Mindy, and our two young boys had come up from Houston, and my brother John (Onion) had flown in from Perth, Australia, with his wife, Shelley, and their toddler daughter, Jamie. The eight of us were planning on a quiet holiday evening in our tiny house on Leslie Ct.
In an attempt to lift the somber mood Mindy and Shelley pulled up the musty artificial tree from the cellar, despite the old man’s objections. The three kids, sat on the floor playing with some boring pre-Christmas gift that we’d provided.
At around 6 p.m. the doorbell rang and bedlam ensued. I opened the door and here comes Santa Claus, not with a deep “ho, ho, ho,” but with the raspiest voice in the City of Bristol.
“Ho! Ho! Ho! Where’s Poopsie?”
It was Gerry Burns in a Santa outfit that even the three kids, all under 6, knew was fake. “Poopsie” was the inexplicable nickname that Gerry gave my dad years earlier.
The dreariness and depression of this Christmas Eve changed in a flash with this new and hilarious energy, like anytime Gerry Burns entered a room.
“Santa’s helper is right behind me with goodies,” Mr. Burns, said as his wonderful wife, Barbara, walked in rolling a cooler of beers for all of us. (Schaefers maybe?)
A second trip to his “sleigh” brought in gifts for all of the kids–each toy intentionally noisy to be sure to annoy all of the adults who were trapped in this tiny house.,
On his third trip, Mr. Burns now in civilian clothes brought in two old-fashioned, football helmets (pre face-mask of course), one complete with his autograph, and he put that one on my dad’s head while he played his ubiquitous “stump fiddle,” a “one-man band” type instrument that is built to annoy.
He also provided all that were in attendance with kazoos.
We put on some Christmas carols and the eight of us just butchered the music (my dad forgoing the need for a kazoo with his infamous whistle).
Mr. Burns had turned one of the most somber Christmases of our lives into one of our most memorable. We ended up next door at our neighbor and good friend Susie Rosshirt’s house, where Mr. Burns led us in Christmas carols until midnight mass.
My dad would survive one more Christmas, but this would be the last one that he would cherish.
With the news of Gerry Burns’s death this week, the thoughts of everyone that knew him most likely reflect back to a similar story. He was a whirling dervish that very seldom entered a room quietly or without soliciting a laugh. He understood when and how close friends needed a lift.
A true Bristol legend.
Jim Greenleaf, a Bristol native, writes an occasional column from Houston, Texas.