The Reindeer Keeper

When growing up my father was a member of our hometown Lions Club. He'd go to meetings on designated Thursday nights. A few times during the year there'd be formal Club events he and my mother would attend. I loved watching my mother get dressed for those occasions. She'd do her hair a little fancier. Wear a dress fit for a Princess and dab some Toujours Moi perfume behind her ears. From a blue velvet jewelry box she'd choose a sparking piece of jewelry. The end result was an amazing transformation of a woman who'd go off to work nights as head nurse in the ER dressed in her starched uniform to a woman I felt for sure was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen-going out the front door for an evening of dancing with a handsome Prince. But the most memorable Lions Club event of the year was the annual Lions Club Children's Christmas Party. That's when my siblings and I got to dress up and go with our father for the evening to a ...

This post has nothing to do with politics and guns and where one stands and why this and why that. Rather, it's all about a favorite present my older brother received a few Christmases in a row when we were little and certain Santa was responsible for bringing us the best presents in the world. It was a game. It came wrapped in a horizontal-shaped box. It had to because inside waited a cork gun, a steel rod that he'd have to fit into a block of wood at both ends, and plastic-type crows. That rod would be the fence on which he'd sit his plastic-type crows. Their 'feet' fit around the rod so they looked like they were sitting on a fence-waiting to be shot by a little guy thrilled with Santa's present. After all the gifts were opened, he'd construct his fence in the dining room. Then, still in his pajamas, he'd sprawl out on his belly and start shooting. I'd be the one fetching the crows that went flying when hit by a cork. The best part of fetching the...