A Christmas Story: The Truck
Narita is a small city of about 125,000 in Japan.
If you should fly into Tokyo, you're actually flying to the international airport at Narita.
It'll take you an hour or better by surface transport to reach Tokyo city.
Airline crews from all over the world layover at Narita.
For ten years I flew for Nippon Cargo Airlines, and I was part of one of those crews.
We had this hangout.
The Truck.
It was parked down by the highway in front of the ANA Hotel.
It was the trailer from an 18 wheeler.
About 50' long and 8.5' wide.
It was a karaoke bar.
You entered by a few steps up to the rear and the bar was w-a-y up in the front end.
Outside, by the side of the trailer were several 'open air' pissoire porta-potties for the guys.
The lady's had doors.
The place was usually packed from about 10 P.M. on until the wee hours.
The beer and music flowed.
There was a small, always crowded, dance floor.
Short term romances waxed and waned.
I was there with a buddy a couple of weeks before Christmas back in the mid 90s.
The patrons were like a roll call of the United Nations.
Brits, French, German, Italians, Filipinos, Russians, etc., you name it.
I was sitting there, drinking one of their beers in the unlabeled green bottle, listening to people of varying talent take the mic to perform "Dancing Queen" and other disco favorites, when I observed to my friend "We need some Christmas music."
"Damn right!" he said.
I made my way up front to the bar and the bartender/DJ.
"Do you have any Christmas albums?"
"Wha?"
It was loud in there.
CHRISTMAS ALBUMS. DO YOU HAVE ANY CHRISTMAS ALBUMS?"
"CHRISTMASU?"
"HAI! CHRISTMASU!"
He rummaged around in shelves behind the bar and pulled out a Johnny Mathis Christmas Album. "Merry Christmas"
"OK?"
"Perfect."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure. Play that and you'll run out of beer tonight."
He smiled.
"Ha!"
Folks, when the first strains of "Silent Night" came over the sound system a hush came over the truck. And then someone picked up a mic and started to sing.
And, slowly at first, everyone sang.
We sang every song.
All together.
And tears were rolling down our cheeks.
So many different people, so far from home.
Many who would not be home for Christmas.
I'll never forget that night.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Thanks for sharing it.
A guy from Aeroflot had his arm around my shoulders at one point.
A RUSSIAN!
THE ENEMY!
Yeah, right.
Made me cry, it did...
Thank you so much for telling it to us...
did they run out of beer that night?
