One of my running buddies in high school was the step child of a manager of a fairly upscale department store in our town. Christmas Eve day we were trying to close out the last minute shopping and ended up going by his pops store in the late afternoon.

Pops was in a tizzy. He had let a skeleton crew of about 20 go about mid-afternoon and had kept only one or two until our arrival. They were departing for home and leaving three “emergencies” that pops felt had to be addressed. One repair and two deliveries.

This was one good guy and Jim and I immediately offered to do whatever we could. Pops gave us the delivery van, tools and two things that had to be delivered for Christmas.

We did his bidding and got back to the store about 8:40 to drop the truck off,. Pop’s awaited He asked if we had shopping to finish and we both said yes. He asked if we had our list, ten minutes on the clock and no register to worry about, could we finish.

And boy did we. One of the best Christmases ever.