The Reindeer Keeper

What a treasure of a picture I discovered Thanksgiving day. Going through family picture albums with my older brother we came across so many pictures we'd never seen before. We had an aunt who organized family pictures by year and by family. Behind many of the photos were the negatives. I can't imagine how long it took her to do this but I am thankful she did. The first photo I would like to share is this amazing photo of my grandfather's barn. This is the barn I went back to in my memory several times when writing, "The Reindeer Keeper." My cousins and I spent countless hours playing and pretending in this massive structure with two haylofts connected by an old plank bridge and empty stanchios and empty chicken roosts. But empty didn't matter to us. In our imaginations they were sometimes occupied. In our imaginations that old barn was one great adventure after another. Despite the snow and rain creeping in between the cracks, we stayed inside that barn-and

My one particular aunt who lived with my grandparents really never cooked. Besides oatmeal and chipped beef on toast, she stayed out of the kitchen. She really didn't have to cook when my grandmother was alive for nothing could beat what this woman of French-Canadian descent created with ease; mixing and stirring without a recipe; using a pinch of that and a dash of whatever else she felt was needed. My grandmother mastered the art of cooking long be fore TV chefs made their way into our homes. But once on her own, my aunt did master a few recipes including her great version of coleslaw. It became a family favorite. It was always requested for family gatherings including Thanksgiving. I'm not sure if my grandmother gave her some secret tips for making coleslaw but whatever my aunt's secrets, her version of this basic salad was carried out to perfection every single time she made it. On Thanksgiving Day her yellow bowl with that salad was a sought after item. It always

Even though we were young, my cousins and I must have realized the china cupboard situtated in a corner of the dining room of the old farmhouse was off limits. I don't remember us talking about it. If we had talked about it I would have remembered because such talks were usually long ones. And I don't remember any adult telling us not to play near the cupboard so it must have been our youthful intuition at work. Oh we played in the dining room all the time. We ran through it, played tag around the oak pedestal table; hid buttons for "Button, Button, Who's Got The Button", laughed and giggled in games of "Red Light-Green Light" and so much more but not once did we venture near that cupboard. Looking back I think it's because we knew it wasn't just any china cupboard. It was our grandmother's china cupboard. The glass doors were only opened on special occasions-including Thanksgiving. When they were, out came bone china dining sets and servin

I only remember one time when I saw my grandmother in anything but a house dress. It was later on in her life. She was going berry picking in a pair of jeans. That image was odd to say the least because growing up, she always wore a house dress; sort of like June Cleaver and Harriet Nelson but more down-to-earth like the Waltons. My grandmother worked from the minute she got up to the minute she went to bed. I guess you could say when she went downstairs in the morning, she was reporting in to work wearing her uniform. Functional, with pockets, her house dress with its lose fit freed her to move fast, cook fast, mend and sew and knit fast, bake bread and prepare meals and clean-up after fast, tend to six daughters fast, help her husband in the barn and fields and gardens fast and deal with everything else in between through four seasons, seven days a week even faster. She had a few house dresses. They were always clean and neat and complimented her as she moved about the old farmh

I can remember going to my grandmother's and eating tuna fish sandwiches. She'd cut up celery into little bits and with a dash of pepper, add the bits to the fish and mix it all together with mayonnaise-never a substitute. Then she'd open a jar of pickles and put them on the table. If she'd run out of her own slippery pickles-the best pickles in the world-she'd serve dill pickles bought at the A & P or Loblaws. To me, pickles and tuna fish were made for each other-like peanut butter and jelly-ice cream and cake. My mother made a great tuna casserole. Served piping hot with bread, the creamy mixture complete with peas and sliced hard-boiled eggs was the perfect meal on a winter's night. It was also good the next day-cold, for lunch. Still to this day my love affair with tuna fish continues most every single day either for lunch or dinner-or both! I don't know what it is about that can of flaky fish. It's not just a habit because more often than no