Adder1234
Well-Known Member
This is a story I heard when I was living in a small rural town a few years ago. First of all, some background information; a lot of rural Australian towns have a tradition of dressing a guy up as Santa and driving him around on top of a fire engine on Christmas eve. However, this particular town didn't do this. One day my dad asked a friend who worked at the fire station about this and he told us this story.
About 12 years before hand, the guy that they usually had as Santa was sick. Now, you may be wondering why they didn't just get some random guy to put on a fake beard and wig, but that was the problem; they guy that usually played him had a massive white beard and long white hair, so they didn't have a wig or fake beard. So all of the firefighters were running around town trying to find some one who looked even remotely like Santa. Eventually, they were about to give up and they decided to go to the pub. When they got there, they found an old, drunk homeless man at the bar. He had been passing through town and he had the exact beard and hair that the fire fighters were looking for.
So they asked him if he would be Santa and he said that he would, so they took him to the station, cleaned him up and put him in the suit. They were driving around town as per usual, with the old man on the back of the truck, when he had a heart attack. It turns out that he was almost 90, and he had a variety of health problems. No ones really sure why he decided to drive around town on the back of a fire truck with all of his problems, but he did. After the heart attack, he fell off of the truck and died.
But that's only half of it. When the police investigated him, they found that he had absolutely no identification. As I said before, he was homeless. No one even knew his name. So, after about a month of searching, the police were unable to identify him or any relatives. But then, some one asked what would be put on his tombstone? Since no one had any better ideas, he was buried under the name "Santa".
And that's the story of why Santa doesn't drive around on a fire truck any more in the town of Blackall, and also why you can find a grave labelled "Santa" in the Blackall Cemetery.
About 12 years before hand, the guy that they usually had as Santa was sick. Now, you may be wondering why they didn't just get some random guy to put on a fake beard and wig, but that was the problem; they guy that usually played him had a massive white beard and long white hair, so they didn't have a wig or fake beard. So all of the firefighters were running around town trying to find some one who looked even remotely like Santa. Eventually, they were about to give up and they decided to go to the pub. When they got there, they found an old, drunk homeless man at the bar. He had been passing through town and he had the exact beard and hair that the fire fighters were looking for.
So they asked him if he would be Santa and he said that he would, so they took him to the station, cleaned him up and put him in the suit. They were driving around town as per usual, with the old man on the back of the truck, when he had a heart attack. It turns out that he was almost 90, and he had a variety of health problems. No ones really sure why he decided to drive around town on the back of a fire truck with all of his problems, but he did. After the heart attack, he fell off of the truck and died.
But that's only half of it. When the police investigated him, they found that he had absolutely no identification. As I said before, he was homeless. No one even knew his name. So, after about a month of searching, the police were unable to identify him or any relatives. But then, some one asked what would be put on his tombstone? Since no one had any better ideas, he was buried under the name "Santa".
And that's the story of why Santa doesn't drive around on a fire truck any more in the town of Blackall, and also why you can find a grave labelled "Santa" in the Blackall Cemetery.
