The Reindeer Keeper

There was a piano in the front parlor of my grandparents' farmhouse. All of us little ones would take turns sitting on the bench pretending to play except for one cousin who really could play. Sometimes I would sit with her. She'd nod her head when it was time for me to turn the page of her songbook. When she put her fingers on the keys and started to play Rhapsody in Blue I'd be mesmerized straight through to the last note. Over the years, I never did learn how to play the piano but I've always loved listening to someone play. I thought I'd heard it all until coming down a narrow flight of stairs to the main area of a local psychiatric center. I was in a hurry. The monthly meeting had run longer than I'd expected. I was aware of the piano's existence. I'd heard someone playing it awhile back when I was standing-waiting for the elevator to take me to the 2nd floor. But this day was different. There was no hustle or bustle. No one was sitting or sleep...

A SENSE OF HUMOR: All of us have our ways of dealing with life when life doesn't go the way we want it to or when the unexpected comes at us like a hurricane. My father chose humor as his way of dealing. I'm not even sure he knew he did that but looking back, I'm certain that's why he'd do his "Tricky Dick" imitation-and joke with my mother who hardly ever thought he was funny-but we did! My father was a dedicated funeral director. His profession was his passion. The families he served became his families. The care and concern he expressed was genuine. When the phone rang and he was needed, my father was there in an instant. He also loved his hometown. He knew every street-every family and where they lived and who married who and when someone had died right down to the date and where they were buried. It wasn't gossip when he'd go on about a family. It was because he looked upon those families as an extended family of his own. By virtue of b...

    Richard Scarry It can’t be in the water for they were all born in different places. It can’t be one particular year in which they were all born because the year differed. I’m certain it has nothing to do with the fact that June is the month with the longest day of the year or that no other month begins on the same day of the week as June. The common denominator simply is the fact that all these famed creators were all born in the month of June.   Richard Scarry-(pictured above)-author and illustrator of over three hundred books with over one hundred million books sold worldwide, was born in Boston June, 1919. He lived a large part of his adult life in Switzerland which shows in his amazingly creative artwork. His animals and imaginative houses and modes of travel continue to delight children-and the young at heart. Busytown and the Best Ever series were favorites in our house and remain on my book shelf. My kids and I loved searching for Lowly wo...