A Christmas Story: The Power of Symbols

I assume most of us have had events in our life that have grown to have symbolism. Occasionally things happen that bring those events back to mind. They grow to represent a principle, a point of view, or even the spirit of a season of the year. One symbol that resonates for me every Christmas is the ghost of Oscar Eisentraut. Bear with me. I'm not particularly superstitious. Few but my closest friends would consider calling me flaky. Don't give up on my story just because I mentioned a ghost.

It was 1988 and approaching the Christmas season. It was my first position as the manager of a department store, the Maison Blanche on the West Bank of the Mississippi across the river from New Orleans. It was also my first year in the New Orleans area. The store was old and had been consolidated down from three floors to just one floor over the years. The top two floors were used for warehousing and storage. I was helping rearrange Christmas decorations on the top floor, when I moved some old Christmas trees and discovered a padlocked door. I asked my staff about the door, and no one knew what was locked berhind it. I went through all the keys I had inherited in the drawers of my desk, and finally just removed the hasp. Inside I found a collection of marionettes, props, scenery and audio tapes. I recognized a large snowman marionette as Mr. Bingle. Mr. Bingle was a plush toy snowman with an upside down ice cream cone for a hat, holly leaves for wings, twirling a a candy cane. We sold the toys every Christmas, as well as numerous other items, even including ties with Mr. Bingle embroidered on them. Every year since the 1950's, the beginning of the New Orleans Christmas season began with the hoisting of a giant Mr. Bingle onto the facade of the Canal Street Maison Blanche.

The puppeteer who had created the Mr. Bingle marionette was Oscar Eisentraut. I had opened his workshop. Oscar Eisentraut had died three years earlier. I was told by someone that he was a Holocaust survivor who had emigrated to New Orleans after World War II. Today I have some doubts whether that was true, but then it seemed believable to me. Another Holocaust survivor worked at the store handling employee package checks at the end of each work shift. I was told that in the late 1940's Oscar was doing puppet shows on Bourbon Street. He was hired by the Maison Blanche store on Canal Street to conduct puppet shows in a display window of the store. The shows would promote a snowman plush toy. Oscar and Mr. Bingle were an immediate hit. They went on to host a December television show for 15 minutes on weekday afternoons and to stage puppet shows at the local children's hospital. A slightly mischievous Mr. Bingle would get into some sort of trouble with Santa and then work his way back to Santa's good side by the end of the show. OK, I guess Santa only has good sides, but Mr. Bingle didn't know that. Of course Santa used the name Kris Kringle, because it rhymed with Mr. Bingle.

Anyway, I selected items from the workshop and created a Mr. Bingle museum area in the store. This created a nostalgic buzz among the baby boomers around the city. They came in the store a family at a time and shared their early memories of Mr. Bingle. Workers at the store reacted differently. They began whispering about Oscar's ghost. One night the store maintenance technician and the Operations Manager had to stay in the store all night to repaint the fur department. The technician swore he saw a ghostly apparition. For me it was just something to joke about it until several nights later, the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Across from Oscar's workshop on the third floor was the computer room, where a large processor recorded all the day's business on reel to reel tapes. At the end of the business day these large reels had to be rewound and remounted, and the data transmitted to the main company computer. At Christmas time, especially the Friday after Thanksgiving, this was a lengthy process. Only one of the 27 stores could transmit data at a time. We opened at 7 a.m and closed at 11 p.m.that day. I was exhausted. It was past midnight. I was reading a book all alone in the computer room, waiting to be called for my turn to transmit data. The only other person in the building was a security person at the employee entrance on the first floor. A phone was right beside her.

Every now and then I would hear a barely audible, gentle voice say “Charles, Charles.” I'd immediately call down to the employee entrance, and the security person would answer, assuring me that no one else was in the building. I think I was too tired to be frightened, and I truly believed my coworkers were too tired themselves to be hiding somewhere making ghostly intonations. This happened more than once to me that year. Other managers mentioned similar experiences. Happily, we all decided that Oscar was a friendly ghost. All of us but one. The children's department manager never again went above the first floor.

I remember thinking that Oscar would eventually come to have more meaning for me later in life, and he has. I think about him especially every December when I place my Mr. Bingle under the Chistmas tree. I wonder how Oscar felt about his puppet shows and Mr. Bingle. I had heard that Oscar was a quiet and private man. If he did survive the Holocaust, how interesting that he became involved with puppetry. To attach a set of strings to a lifeless form and symbolically bring it to life. It could certainly be a way to deal with trauma. I imagined what emotions might have motivated him. He was literally uplifting, resurrecting. There was insight in that voice and apparition.

I think of Oscar when I see the smiling faces at our local Boy's and Girl's Club. I see symbolic strings lifting the spirits of at risk children who then manage to stay in school and learn. In think of him along with old friends who have dedicated their lives to the physically and mentally challenged. I see strings helping them become part of the community and to live productive and rewarding lives. I see them lifting the homeless to self-sufficiency through the dedicated efforts of case workers, counselors and volunteers. I imagine that I've learned from Oscar that we don't have to dwell on the most difficult things in life, but from time to time we do have to use the strings that we control to make them just a little better. I believe that's what Oscar did. I believe that's what Mr. Bingle discovered every afternoon as he strove to get back into Santa's good graces. I believe that's the spirit of Christmas.