Merry Christmas from the Urban Observer!
(photo by Lula Bey)
The Urban Observer is taking a little break for the Christmas holiday. In the meantime, please do look through the archives for all kinds of UO goodness, such as visions of State Street from 1973; the Mies Van der Rohe music video (I still can't get enough of it); and the burlesque show I photographed last summer.
Look long enough and you'll be Medium Cool as you Monkey Hustle. And you'll read the story of the Bleak House, an old manse on South Michigan Avenue whose wealthy original owners had a run of bad luck.
But most importantly, this Christmas season, spend time with your loved ones.
OH! I guess I should say something about today's photo. This is a photo of me, taken by my mother in December 1971. I was in 1st grade and got cast as Santa Claus for the Christmas play at James Madison Elementary School at 74th and Dorchester in Chicago. I say "cast," but the truth is I volunteered to be Santa because Thereseda Rodgers, who I wasdigging madly and unrequitedly, got picked for Mrs. Claus. I was so happy to get selected, I also volunteered my mother as seamstress to make this Santa suit and the costumes for my entire class. I should have asked my mother first. Because it was a big class (that's me--the 5th kid from the left in the second row; the young Miss Rodgers is in the top row, second from the right):
My mother took on the job, making the costumes out of crepe paper. After the play, the kids got a kick out of tearing out of the costumes as they took them off. But not me. My mother ordered me to leave mine on until we got home so she could take the above photo of me. I still remember the kids teasing me--and nobody can tease like my black brothers and sisters--as we walked to her car: 'Santa Claus! What you gonna get ME for Christmas?'
My mother's big Polaroid Land camera was instant...by 1971 standards. I remember you had to pull the photo out the side of it and wind some built-in timer. When the timer went off, the photo had developed. She put a little cardboard backing on the photo and on it and wrote: "Chip [which is my nickname to this very day, by the way] 6 years old 12/3/71. Santa Claus in the school play." Man, I still remember the love I felt...
And with that, my crepe paper Santa Claus suit also wound up in the garbage. But I've got this photo--and one of my favorite Christmas memories.
