When you're a kid, it's simple.
Christmas is magic.
It's a time of miracles, when reindeer can fly, and Frosty never melts.
Then you get older. Somehow, things change.
The magic begins to fade.
Until something happens that reminds you, at Christmas time...
Miracles still can be found.
Happy Holidays, men.
Sometimes in the most unexpected places.
In my grasp, is a message from Richard Milhouse Nixon.
Gentleman, our Chief Executive has entrusted me, as a physical educator,
to make sure you men are performing at, or above, the national average.
The President's All-American Physical Fitness Challenge.
I guess I don't have to tell you this is an awesome responsibility. Do I. Arnold?
Uh, yes sir. You don't. Have to tell us.
I didn't think so.
By December of 1970, it was pretty clear Christmas meant nothing to Coach Cutlip.
While most human beings were brimming with Yuletide cheer, he was brimming with...
Chin-ups. Sit-ups. The shuttle run. Various calisthenics. And, of course...the rope climb.
Face it. The guy was Scrooge in a baseball cap.
Scoozie. OK now, who wants to start?
Not that it was anything new to us. The pain, the exhaustion, the humiliation.
It was something we had come to expect from the guy.
Still, that year, a new thought was forming in our collective ninth grade minds.
Cutlip's a raving lunatic!
He has absolutely no Christmas spirit.
He makes us dust the floor in front of the girl's gym class.
And Doug with his underwear hangin' out.
My underwear was showing?!
Somebody oughtta do something to that guy.
Hey don't get me involved with this. I gotta play basketball for the guy.
It seemed Paul was about the only one of my colleagues who had a real sense of reality.
What I wouldn't give just once to have something over Cutlip.
Yeah, take him down a peg.
Maybe we should talk to him.
Aw, get real.
What?
You can't talk to the guy. Cutlip's from another planet.
Men. I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking...you let me down.
Well, don't give it a second thought. There's always ma?na.(³¡¿¡ ¹«½¼¸»ÀÎÁö ¸ð¸£°Ú³×¿ä.^^)
It was fine, Mom.
If I wanted my spirits dampened, I had a Mom who was doing a fine job.
- You know what? - What?
We should get you a new tie, too.
No, Mom. No ties. I got the shoes, enough's enough.
Kevin?!
Christmas seemed to trigger Mom's biological need to buy formal wear for her family.
Dad needs a tie. You should get Dad a tie. OK?
Well? Meet me back in five minutes.
Shoes, ties, calisthenics.
It was beginning to seem like the whole world was adrift in a quagmire of phony holiday spirit.
It made you wonder, what ever happened to the magic?
Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas! Step right up here young lady!
Now this was more like it.
In its own tacky way, seeing those kids waiting at that Christmas mall display,
made me remember what I'd been missing.
Step right up here, young man! Up on Santa...Ho, ho, ho!
Maybe it was Santa's hearty laugh.
Maybe I was waxing nostalgic for my simpler youth.
Ho, ho, ho, ho! So, Bobby, tell me, what would you like from Santa for Christmas, huh?
Whatever it was, for the first time in years, Saint Nick actually seemed familiar to me.
What's that? A bike? Slow down, Bobby. Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho.
Like a long-lost uncle, who I couldn't quite place.
Scoozie.
Cutlip?
Well every young man should have -
It was horrible, worse than horrible. The whiskers, the bells, the hat?
Kind of a Christmas nightmare come true.
First time I'd ever seen a teacher outside of school, and he had a pillow strapped to his stomach.
The next morning I tried to block the terrible image from my head.
I prayed I'd imagined the whole thing.
Uh, hi.
Morning, Arnold.
Mr. Cutlip? How are you doing today?
Not bad.
I tried to read his expression.
Had he seen me? Had I really seen him?
Yourself?
Uh, great. Great.
Any adventures since last time I saw you, Arnold?
No. Well, I did go shopping at the Brightlin Mall.
Brightlin Mall?
Uh-huh.
Never been there myself. Don't get out that far.
Oh.
See you in gym class, Arnold.
Uh, yeah, I'll be there.
Fine.
And then it was over. I'd been mistaken.
Suddenly I felt full of holiday cheer again.
Merry Christmas, sir!
There are few things in life I'll always regret. This was one of those things.
Listen up, men. Starting today, some of you are gonna have to work a little harder.
As I sat on that cold parquet floor, I felt as if I were on death row.
We begin...
With the shuttle run.
I knew too much, and I was gonna have to pay the price.
Cornell, you're running first.
Then, Porter, you're up next. And, let's see...Arnold.
Yes, sir?
He'd been saving me for last. Who knew what kind of torture he had in store for me.
Grueling sit-ups, excruciating push-ups.
How 'bout you keep time?
Sure.
OK, the rest of you guys, up and at 'em.
And that's when I realized, knowledge was power.
All of a sudden, Christmas had come early. It was wonderful.
Unfortunately, not everyone shared my holiday spirit.
Come on, everybody, down this end of the gym! Let's go!
Let's go! Move it!
The next couple days in gym class, my popularity was...
Hey, guys.
- Hey! - Teacher's pet.
Not exactly at an all-time high.
We should just call you Cutlip-in-training.
Oh, c'mon, guys, it's not like that.
Oh, yeah?
I'm one of you.
Pistachio, Arnold?
Red ones.
Uh...
Sure.
Keep the whole bag.
One of us, huh?
Seemed pretty clear something had to be done.
Mr. Cutlip?
Mr. Cutlip!?
Can I talk to you? It's important.
In here.
Shoot.
Well, I think we might have a little misunderstanding.
No misunderstanding. Not at all.
Well, I just want you to know that, even though I saw you as -
Well...you know.
I appreciate you coming to me, Arnold.
You do?
Because I wanted to give you these.
Passes. To get out of gym.
You're excused from the President's Challenge.
Yeah, Mr. Cutlip -
Call me Ed.
Listen, sir, I really don't want to get out of gym.
Playing hardball, huh?
What?
I'm on to your game now. I've played a little ball in my life, too.
Capisce?
Uh, Mr. Cutlip, I -
Say no more, Arnold.
Looks like it's class time for both of us.
Things were spiraling out of control.
There was no telling what a volatile guy like Cutlip might do next.
Your wrist hurt from holding the stopwatch?
The walls were pushing in all around me.
Doug, this isn't my fault.
Yeah, right.
This is ridiculous. Just 'cause I saw Cutlip working at the Brightlin Mall -
You what?!
Uh-oh.
Forget it.
You saw Cutlip in the mall?
Yeah, and now my life's ruined. You happy?
You Kevin Arnold?
There it was, my summons to destiny. It was time to face...
My executioner.
Sit down, Arnold.
- I have something for you. - OK.
He was probably reaching for a weapon, a gun.
Fruitcake. I picked it up at the mall. Twenty percent employees' discount.
A fruitcake?
Just one of the many reasons I took the job...as...Santa.
You know, Arnold, to a man who has devoted his life to public education,
the opportunity to buy wholesale is nothing to laugh at.
But I don't need to tell you that, do I?
No. I don't think so.
May I go now?
There's another reason.
There is?
Esther Cutlip. My mother. The woman is a saint.
Uh-huh.
I found myself hoping for the school bell to ring, the sound of the buses pulling up, anything to get out of there.
If it weren't for my support, there's no telling the catatonic state the woman might fall into.
That's nice, sir.
Tell me something, Arnold. You ever been inside a Santa outfit?
Oh my God, we were crossing a line teachers and students were never supposed to cross.
It was horrifying.
It's hot, and it's sweaty -
Look, Mr. Cutlip? I don't really want to know what it's like.
Your discounts, your fruitcake, your mother, that's none of my business, OK?
I'm not gonna tell anyone about you being Santa so let's just forget it.
OK? It's forgotten. Please.
Arnold.
Kids like me when I'm Santa.
And right then, for the first time as I looked at the man, I actually saw a human being.
Not a great human being, maybe not even a good human being, but a very lonely human being.
Your secret's safe with me, Mr. Cutlip.
I headed home, feeling pretty good about not having spilled the beans.
Until I remembered the beans had already been spilled.
Doug, you can't tell anybody what I told you before.
Oh. OK.
You didn't, did you?
Well...only Randy.
So, um, what exactly does Cutlip do at the mall?
Forget it.
Does he sell Orange Julius?
You gotta tell us where he works, Kev.
No way!
Well, we've got eyes. We'll, uh, we'll just go find out for ourself.
Holy cow, these guys were serious.
The vultures were circling, and it was all my fault.
And right there, right then, I knew what I had to do.
There was no time to lose.
I had to beat those guys to Center Court, no matter what the obstacles.
Hey, hey, hey! You gotta wait your turn.
Yeah, but this is important, I know him!
That's what they all say.
You're a fine boy. Santa's going to give you whatever you want. Ho, ho, ho!
Mommy! Anything I want!
Arnold.
What are you doing here?
Well...I -
You're not going to sit on my lap, are you?
- No. - Good.
- You'd be too old. You realize that. - Yeah. Mr. Cutlip, I -
Ssh! Call me Santa!
I came to say I'm sorry.
Sorry?
Yeah. There's a bunch of guys from class coming to look for you.
I kinda let it slip about you working at the mall.
You didn't.
So you probably should hide out in your shack until this whole thing blows over.
Here they came, the hounds to the kill.
There was only one option: head for the chimney.
No can do, Arnold.
What?
Let them come if they must.
I am who I am.
I'll always remember that look on his face.
He was at once heroic and stupid.
Move along, Arnold.
There was nothing more I could do.
The die was cast. It was Santa's Last Stand.
It's Arnold! Come on!
- Look, guys... - Where is he, Kev?
- Might as well tell us. - Forget it!
Fine, we're just gonna have to find him ourselves.
C'mon, guys, split up.
I stood there, helpless, outnumbered. And that's when it happened.
Doug Porter looked first, directly into the eyes of the man who had taught him gym for three long years.
Then Tommy Kisling looked, too, and Randy Mitchell.
Those three skeptics gazed straight at that white beard,dead into the eyes of Coach Cutlip not thirty feet away.
But all that they saw...was Santa Claus.
C'mon, guys. Let's keep looking.
It was a miracle.
He stood there like some patron saint of all the lonely people holidays sometimes forget.
All right. Who's next to see Santa?
And for that brief moment of Christmas magic,
Ed Cutlip got his chance to be what he always wanted.
And I never gave him away.
Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!
ÇÏºñ ÀÚ¸· µ¿È£È¸ °¨»çÇÕ´Ï´Ù. Á¦ÀÛ : iamy1004 (iamy1004@hanmail.net)