By By KEVIN SCOTT CUTLER
Lifestyles & Features Editor
For more than 50 years, Bill Nelson has been adding a bit of Christmas cheer to Beaufort County celebrations while giving the fat guy in red and white a helping hand during the holidays.
It just wouldn’t be Christmas for Nelson if he didn’t get the chance to don his Santa suit and help ring in the season of giving. And he did just that when he “played Santa” in Chocowinity’s parade this year.
“You get to thinking you are the old man,” Nelson said with a Santa-worthy belly laugh.
A Washington native, Nelson now lives in Chocowinity after marrying “a little country girl” nearly 60 years ago.
In the early 1950s, after a stint in the Navy, Nelson was working as a general handyman and clerk at Talley Brothers, a general farm-supply store then located on Main Street in Washington. One day, while out making deliveries in the store’s big truck, he caught the eye of a local fire chief. Impressed with his handling of the truck, the chief offered him a job with the fire department.
“That was how I got drafted in as Santa,” Nelson recalled. “I was a last minute fill-in for somebody. I’d never done it before in my life.”
But he took to the role like a duck to water — or a reindeer to a sleigh, if you will.
Nelson was Washington’s official Santa for years, traditionally bringing up the rear of the city’s Christmas parade. He even branched out in the role, appearing with eastern North Carolina television personality Slim Short on his show, “Carolina Today.”
But Nelson’s favorite part of Christmas didn’t require him to don the red velvet-and-white fur suit. He, and other firefighters, spent weeks before the holiday refurbishing second-hand bikes and toys for underprivileged children.
“Back then, they didn’t have Toys for Tots, so you had to count on local organizations to help at Christmas,” Nelson said. “Ol’ Santa could always count on these people and the boys at the fire department.”
Local merchants provided supplies, and the firefighters would spend their down time sanding, painting and generally repairing whatever toys they could get their hands on.
Members of a local card club pitched in with monetary support, as well. The members included Congressman Herbert Bonner, Mayor Tom Stewart, Ashley Futrell, “Ox” Langley, Ray Moore, Wayland Sermons Sr. and “Skinny” Winfield, Nelson said.
“They were always around the table in the fire department, playing Beaufort County rummy,” Nelson said with a smile. “If you needed anything, they’d get the word out. You could always count on those guys.”
To be continued …