Secret Santa. (The Goodness of America).(Brief Article)

Though only a few family members and close friends know his secret identity, a wealthy businessman in the Kansas City, Missouri, area has become something of a legend since 1979, when he first began handing out cash to persons in need, especially during the Christmas season.

USA Today for December 20,2001, profiled the beneficent mystery man known as "Secret Santa," including details of his three-day pre-Christmas visit to New York City, where he sought to do something special for New Yorkers in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Walking the streets, he handed out 25,000 of his own money (he receives no tax breaks for the gifts). He then returned Kansas City, where he planned to give away a like amount.

Raised in a small Mississippi town by grandparents who struggled to keep him fed and clothed, Secret Santa lost his job as a door-to-door salesman in 1971 when his company went out of business. With no family to turn to, and too ashamed to ask for help from others, he was soon penniless. After sleeping in his car for more than a week on one occasion -- he could afford neither gasoline nor a motel room -- and going without food for two days, he walked into a Houston, Mississippi, diner in desperation and ordered breakfast. After finishing the meal, he feigned losing his wallet as a ploy to avoid paying. The owner of the diner eventually came near the stool where he had been sitting, reached down, and "picked up" a $20 bill. "Son," he said, "you must have dropped this."

Secret Santa recalls, "It was like a fortune to me. I said to myself, 'Thank you, Lord.' And my next thought was that 'I'd better go ahead and get out of here before the person who really dropped it comes back in.'" He later realized, however, that "maybe nobody had dropped the money at all -- maybe that fella ...