The Reindeer Keeper

My love of chalkboards goes back to when I was growing up in the country and playing in the chicken coop clubhouse that had been gutted and filled with the remains of a one-room schoolhouse. This included the books, desks and one chalkboard. That's where the love affair began. It's where my cousin and I turned our imaginations up full speed and when we did it most always included using our chalkboard. That was especially true when playing school. Our pretend students would be called up one-by-one to fill in the answers to math problems or to draw shapes or to spell words or to connect a stick drawing to the matching word. If we were playing Cowboy, the chalkboard would tell tired passengers stopping at our pretend restaurant what the specials were for the day. It also gave the arrival and departure times of the pretend stagecoach. If we were teaching art the chalkboard, sitting on top of a small stool so we'd be able to reach it, was on overload. Intrigue of chalkboard...

Growing up in the country, Easter meant one thing-amazing treasure hunts plotted and executed by an uncle who was just a kid at heart. Early Easter morning that uncle would go on his mission of hiding small clues written on strips of white paper absolutely anywhere he pleased including the fields and creek and old barns and granary and pumphouse and garages and cars and sidewalks and trees and woodshed and that chicken coop turned into our clubhouse. He'd have them hidden before we got up! Rain or snow we'd be outside most of the day searching, running, peering, wondering, figuring-scratching our heads-one minute in deep despair unable to find the next clue while maybe seconds later jumping for sheer joy with that clue in hand, ready to figure out where the next clue might be. You must understand the clues were not hidden haphazardly or were they obvious. And each clue was cleverly written by clever wording. The entire hunt was thought out, mapped out and staked out with eve...

I've never know a child who doesn't like blowing bubbles or chasing bubbles or watching bubbles drift away. With all the super-duper, high-powered bubble-producing toys now on the market with huge containers of all sorts of bubble solutions, it's easy to blow multi-layered bubbles that amaze even adults. Suddenly the adult is a little kid again-fascinated with all the bubbles swirling and twirling and disappearing in mid-air. They have as much fun as the children around them following those huge, moving masses of bubbles to see how far the wind will take them. I remember watching bubbles float through the air when playing outside in the country and we didn't have all those fancy plastic contraptions-just little plastic bottles full of sticky bubble solution with small plastic wands inside. We'd cheer the bubbles on as they some how missed hitting bushes and fences; catching little whirlwinds, they'd forge on against the odds. We'd be amazed by their journ...

I venture to say Easter took more preparation time than I realized when I was a kid oblivious to all the behind-the-scenes-goings-on out in the country. I'm sure the week before there were phone calls between those four houses in a row concerning recipes and who-was-to-do-what and jelly bean and chocolate bunny buying and shopping for new shoes that went clickety-click on sidewalks. But when your focus is on that Bunny and what he will be leaving in the biggest basket you could hope for, you really don't care who's cooking what or what time the family gathering will take place. The day always turned out perfectly which only strengthened my remaining in a state of oblivion. Every year the Easter Bunny snuck into our house without me hearing him. My older brother would tell me he saw him but I knew he was fibbing. It didn't matter! I had other things going on like an Easter basket overflowing with bunnies and chicks; jelly beans and eggs; a few bubble gum cigars and a ...