From the S&S archives: Visions of dolls, bikes ... and dads back in port

Santa Claus has got to be the most tireless elder in the world, never wearying of smiling faces and fantastic requests.

Even of tears.

He beams. He smiles. He promises. He comforts.

He can ho-ho-ho away the fears of a little girl, briefly frightened as she finds herself on the lap of a bulky, red-clad ogre.

Oh; the things those kids want.

"The girls are asking for dolls, mostly, and the boys want bicycles," Santa says. "My most unusual request was for a horse."

Sometimes he has to tactfully defer promises. The Santa who sat in the Yokohama Navy Exchange, counting up to 1,000 young visitors, .had to find the right words when children and even a few grownups asked that fathers on the aircraft carrier Midway be delivered home for Christmas.

"I'll see what I can do," Santa replied softly.

He wears blue in the off-season himself and knows it is was a long haul from the Persian Gulf, where fathers are adding muscle to efforts to bring other Americans home for Christmas.