I did not kill Burl Ives…

Did I ever tell you I was a DJ?

This was back in college in Tennessee. I’d gotten my operator’s license so I could play around on the college station, WTTU. So, when I needed some extra money it made sense to apply at the local pro-station. They hired me, told me call myself The Big O and stuck me in the AM side playing the hits of the fifties. All was well, until the beginning of the holidays. The AM side immediately went to all Christmas carols, all the time. And every other carol was sung by Burl Ives.

At first it was great. I like Christmas carols as much as the next guy—probably more. But after the first week or so, I was hearing ol’ Burl in my sugarplum-flavored nightmares. A week later, I hated the sound of him. I used to joke that one day, I’d wake up in Burl’s back yard dressed in a holly-decked Ghillie suit, clutching a sniper rifle. It never came to that. And years later I was even able to listen to Burl’s Christmas repertoire without even flinching.

But I always wanted to get back at old Sam the Snowman (the narrator Burl voiced in the classic stop-action Frosty) And now I am. If only through weird story telling.

It’s starts like this… “In the kitchen a man stood over my wife’s bloody, unmoving body… A snowman.”