Perhaps he has gone on to busk on that Great Street Corner in the Sky (or more likely, in The Other Place), but some years back, a day or two after Thanksgiving, this trumpet player would manifest himself on the corner of 5th Avenue and Pike St. in downtown Seattle, in front of one of the bigger department stores, and from then until Christmas he would hold forth from morning until well after sundown.

For four or five weeks, he would play two pieces:   "Deck the Halls with Bows of Holly" and "Rudolph, that Bloody Red-Nosed Reindeer!" All the flamin' day long. First one, then the other.

This wasn't too bad for the shoppers, or passers-by, because they could escape the area after doing their business. But the people who worked in offices within earshot tended to grow very strange and agitated. "I'm gonna murder that son-of-a-bitch!!" was a phrase one would hear often, from doctors, lawyers, clerks, stenographers, priests, ministers, rabbis, street corner Santa Clauses. . . .

And the guy was not that great a trumpet player. He sprinkle his playing with weird, unintended notes fairly frequently. He may very well have had a damaged lip from people frequently succumbing to temptation and trying to cram the trumpet down his throat.

Don Firth