Christmas in July and Trailer Park Santa and Childhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana

Jul 11, 2017 | Blog, Christopher J Music

Well, it’s “Christmas in July” again and I have completed another holiday-themed song that’s ready to launch, which I have dubbed “Trailer Park Santa”!

Update July 20th:  Here is the link to the Trailer Park Santa video.

The backstory on Trailer Park Santa is after spending time recording music with a sacred theme, e.g. Mary’s Gift and the Hallelujah Chorus, I was ready for something fun. Secondly, Trailer Park Santa was inspired by my real life experience when I was eight years old of living in a trailer park in Fort Wayne, Indiana which was bordered by US Highway 30 on one side, a lumber yard on the other side, railroad on the two sides, the Gladieux oil refinery just across the tracks and a number of factories not far away including International Harvester and Phelps Dodge. (Wikipedia has this nice little factoid about Phelps Dodge:  “As of 2013, the Political Economy Research Institute identified Phelps Dodge as the 41st-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States….”.  I still remember seeing, during the winter, black snow on our car! Maybe that is how I ended up with asthma?  
Here is an aerial view of that spot where our home on wheels once stood. Today seven oil storage tanks occupy the spot I once called home.

One persistent memory of that time was how I went over to Johnny’s trailer to play one day and Johnny’s mom served us cookies and milk while walking around in nothing but her bra and panties. After I got back home and told my mom about this experience, she said, with that funny wrinkle in her brow, “You are not to go over to Johnny’s house any more.”

So from those days came Trailer Park Santa and a humorous look back at how Santa brightened up our days in that smoggy trailer park.

Stay tuned and check back later this week for the release.  You can always check my music store page for the latest music.