EDITOR'S NOTE; Richard Watherwax's book, Tall Tales of Old Key West," is a series of 14 interviews with 109-year-old Archie Peasley, who reminisces about the Key West of his youth. This special Christmas Eve tale, however, does not appear in the book.
"Well, I'm comin' up on another Christmas, and they all start runnin' together after a while, but I gotta admit, there's one that stands out from the rest, and that's the year it snowed in Key West.
Don't believe all those history books and tourist ads that say it never did, `cause I was there to see it. My Daddy told me it snowed the year I was born, in 1889, but I was just an embryo then, so I can't swear to it. The year I'm talkin' about was 1919, and it was on the first day of December. Here's what happened:
I was doin' odd jobs around the Iron City Saloon, to keep my bar bill sorta current, and I was cleanin' out a shed in back when I heard a lotta hoopin' and hoolerin'. I thought maybe Miss Mary had declared her love services were on the house for a week, or somethin' wonderful like that, and I ran out to see what was goin' on.
"There it was . . . big snowflakes, just driftin' down, real slow and beautiful. I'd seen pictures in books at school, so I knew what was up, but a couple fellas in the bar went loco, and started shootin' their guns at it. The dogs were barkin', parrots were squawkin', and there was general mayhem for a spell, till it was explained to the less educated. The sun was shinin' and it was in the 80s, but that snow kept fallin' all day, all night and the next day too. We was some puzzled, but there was more surprises comin'.
"It was several days before it stopped, so we took advantage to have a blizzard party at the Saloon, that set the record for all out drunkenness that probably hasn't been beat yet. The snow was only about three feet deep, but we declared ourselves snowbound in the bar, so poor Stush had to keep us in food and booze until help arrived.
Miss Mary upstairs did a office business, and Matthew Brady, Jr. charged everybody a dollar to take their picture next to a snowman he built. We had a time.
"But let's get down to the point of all this. By the end of the week all the snow had melted, except one mysterious clump of it, right outside the bar next to the back steps. Most of us didn't think much about it, cause all sorts of things happened in those days.
But after two more weeks went by, and it was still there, we started talkin'. Ol' Cicero Coburn went over to it one afternoon and stuck his finger in it. We was all watchin' from the back porch when he jumped back with a yell and ran around front yellin' `It's alive . . . It's alive!'
"That didn't sit too well with some of the boys, and some of them skulked back into the bar, but Bitsy and I went down and gave it a few pokes with a broom handle.
Now you're not gonna believe this, but the snow pile started movin' and a minute later out from under it crawled a big, beautiful white cat! It sat down and started washin' itself for awhile, then it looked at us with big yellow eyes, and said what cats have been sayin' since the beginnin' of time . . . `Meow.'
"Now the boys at the Saloon were a pretty rough and ready gang of coarse fellas now and then, but we all were animal lovers, since we lived with so many of them in the Saloon. There was Robbie Horn's 30-pound cat Willoughby, and Ma Pelican, the Mexican's buffalo (he had a lot of them over the years), an' parrots, dogs, donkeys, horses, and naturally, cows.
"One of Stush's regular customers was a gent named Gary Gold, who was a banker from up north that came down here and stayed, I won't say he was an alcoholic, but we didn't even know that he drank until he showed up sober one day. Anyway, from the day he arrived, cows started followin' him. He couldn't escape them . . . they just took a shine to Gary, and came in the Bar, the Monroe Theatre, his house . . . everywhere he went.
"At first he tried runnin' but they just galloped after `im. They didn't seem to have any particular purpose . . . they just liked to stand around and watch Gary.
So every time he came in the Saloon, about a dozen cows would come mooin' in behind him. Made for pretty crowded conditions on Saturday nights, but who's gonna argue with four tons of cows?"
"But I'm off track again. There we were, with this mysterious cat that seemed to have been born full grown in a snow drift. Mighty peculiar. The cat came up the steps and went right in the Saloon and sat down. Everytime someone tried to pet it, it would duck away . . . not bein' nasty, but more like shy.
"Live and let live is the Key West way, so after awhile the cat became part of the scenery, so to speak. No one could pet it, and we never saw it eat. But we had other things on our mind . . . namely Miss Mary's Annual Christmas Play. This year she decided to do a Nativity scene, with her playin' the Virgin Mary, and the three wise men would be played by some of the boys, with a few animals in the manger to make it look real.
"And that's why I was cleanin' out that shed a few weeks before when the snow started fallin'. We fixed it up to look like a stable, and got some of the boys dressed up in robes, and gave them gifts to hold. I remember that one was Marvin Myrhh, one was Gary Gold, and the third was Fran Ensigns, the Navy fella.
"Ol' Brady got his camera set up, and everyone gathered around on Christmas Eve. It was jut gettin' dusk, and Roberto was playin' O Holy Night on the piano in the Saloon, real quiet like. Miss Mary decided she didn't want any real animals in the scene `cause they were tramplin' everything, and also `cause some of `em weren't too keen on their toilet trainin'.
"So Gary Gold and his cows were excused from the goin's on, and we had two wise men, `stead of three. Miss Mary put a couple of little statues of horses in the setting that Tom Mix had given her on one of his visits to see her. I still think they were unicorns but she swore they were horses."
"We were all waitin' for Beulah Kratzer to show up with her baby `cause he was goin' to play the child. Word finally came that the poor kid was laid up with the grippe, and we were some disappointed. We were about to give up, when what do you suppose happened . . . the White Cat came down the steps and got up in Miss Mary's lap.
The first time that he had gone near anyone. We got real still, and Miss Mary picked up the cat, held it to her breast, and Brady took a picture. Then we sang all the choruses of Silent Night. When we was finished I never heard it so quiet . . . just the piano music comin' out of the bar, and an occasional sniffle from one of the boys.
It was gettin' dark, and the breeze was stirrin' the palms. I looked up, and there was a bright star in the sky, just like in the story. When I looked back, the White Cat was gone, and no one ever saw it again. I dunno' what it means. Maybe nuthin'.
Anyway . . . Merry Christmas.