Fwd: For Dave Monroe, always for Dave, every Christmas Eve. Dave, someday i'll get to Milwaukee and sit in that seat. Keep resting in peace, heart eased.

[Mark Kohut]

Christmas Eve, 1955, Benny Profane, wearing black levies, suede jacket,
sneakers and big cowboy hat, happened to pass through Norfolk, Virginia.
......

Every night is Christmas Eve on old East Main,
Sailors and their sweethearts all agree.
Neon signs of red and green
Shine upon the friendly scene,
Welcoming you in from off the sea.
Santa's bag is filled with all your dreams come true:
Nickel beers that sparkle like champagne,
Barmaids who all love to screw,
All of them reminding you
It's Christmas Eve on old East Main.
                                       ----V

A reminder of its anti-Puritanism: ...."too much unregulated joy"

"What is Christmas, anyway? For those who don’t celebrate the birth of
Christ yet still trim a tree on December 25, it’s…well, complicated.
Christmas is, after all, a specifically Christian holiday, albeit one
briefly banned by the 17th-century Puritans (too much popery and public
drunkenness), and at which the neo-puritanically inclined and the
chronically grinchy persist in looking askance (too much unregulated
joy)."--Terry Teachout, WSJ yesterday, 2 years ago.