The Reindeer Keeper

I’d ridden by the Amish farmhouse with Christmas wreaths displayed on the front porch a few days earlier. The contrast of red bows against off-white clapboards caught my eye. I didn’t have time to stop but I knew I’d get back there. And I did earlier this morning despite the zero-degree temperature and a light snow making the less travelled, winding road a little slippery. But that didn’t stop me. There was something about that simple house with corn shocks gathered in a nearby field and those wreaths on display in the cold that made me feel like Santa lived there. I noted tracks leading from the barn to the road. They were from the wheels of a buggy and a horse pulling it. I noted footsteps in the snow. Someone was off somewhere early. Maybe the North Pole?   Thoughts of that someone out in the freezing cold made me hurry along a shoveled path leading to the front porch where the wreaths were hanging from nails. Aromas of cedar and pine and something baking inside brought m...

Despite the rip right through my older brother's face, this photo is in pretty good shape considering its age. I am so thankful I found it in a box of old photos meant some day to be a part of a family album. Of course back when it was taken there wasn't the technology as there is today so if photos weren't put into albums immediately, they were added to a collection of photos stored away in a drawer or a box once they were developed. I'm figuring a store employee took this photo. I think that #53 is a reference number for the photo. It doesn't matter. What matters are the memories, despite the fact I have no recollection of that day-still dressed in my snowsuit in the basement of a J. J. Newberry's in the heart of the downtown in my hometown. I remember hearing stories of going there to see Santa Claus when we were little. I remember walking down the stairs and turning right but that's it. Maybe I can't remember because I would get so very excited w...

I can't remember what grade my older brother-by two and a half years-was in when he was chosen by his teacher to sing one of the stanzas of 'We Three Kings' in the Christmas program at the little grade school we both attended just up the block from our house on the lane. I do remember I didn't think much about it even though I heard my parents discussing his singing with other relatives. That didn't matter. I knew he preferred playing with me over singing. And I was certain he wasn't as good at singing as he was at building forts with me in the front hall. Our forts were made when closing off both doorways leading to the front stairs by using blankets. I don't know how he'd secure the blankets. I was more interested in filling our secret space. When the blankets were in place we'd take books from our mother's bookcase and put them in our secret spot. I'd run upstairs and bring down some of my dolls and stuffed animals. I don't thin...

Growing up in the country surrounded by relatives proved to be my own Kickstarter when it came to taking my love of newspapers at a very young age to another level. I don't know if my infatuation was with the smell of the print or everything that a newspaper had to offer from the front page to the last page. Add in flyers and advertisements and the lure grew even stronger. I read all the sections-from local news to national news to sports and special features. When my father brought the newspaper home with him, I was usually the first one to grab it. My family's home was one of four homes in a row and all those homes were full of those relatives. My grandparents' farmhouse was the anchor. Off in a field not far from the farmhouse was an abandoned chicken coop. That old coop became the center of my universe, as well as my cousins, after the adults gutted it and filled it with the desks, chalkboards, and books from a vacated one-room schoolhouse. We were always in the ...

My mother worked the midnight shift as a Charge Nurse in the ER. Working that shift meant my parents didn't have to pay a babysitter for me and my older brother. By the time she had to leave to get to the hospital, she'd fed and bathed us. Then we'd ride in the backseat of the car as my father drove her to work. After she got out of the car, waved to us and disappeared inside, my father wouldn't drive away. The three of us would stay in that car, looking up towards a window overlooking the circular drive. The window was in the office of the Nun in charge. Our mother would get to that window and wave goodbye again. On the way back home it was as if she was still in the car. I could smell her Avon deodorant and whatever she'd used to keep both her hair and starched white cap in place. Besides those familiar scents, I also remember a leather-type bag she always brought back and forth with her. It held books she might be reading. It also held whatever project she was ...

When I was growing up we had a Santa Claus ceramic cookie jar that sat on one of the shelves of a free standing service cart-like-thing. It had wheels so you could roll it around from one wall to another or one room to another. My mother always kept it in the kitchen by the back door. Along with that cookie jar she kept the toaster sitting on that stand as well. Both the toaster and the cookie jar always stayed in the same place. Other stuff wasn't permanent. It changed when she needed to get something out of the way. It never mattered to any of us that it was a 'Santa Claus' cookie jar. What mattered was that it contained cookies all year long. My grandmother kept her cookies inside a small, free-standing cupboard. It was painted white and it had a counter top. Half of the space in the front of that cupboard was where she kept boxes of cereal. All you had to do was open a small door and make your choice. The other half was comprised of three pull-out drawers. The ...

No matter where my mother went she was wearing a hair net or had one with her in her purse even when going to the grocery store. Her wearing a hair net always amazed me because her hair was either set in place with lots of hair spray or done up tightly in pin curls held in place by bobby pins. But that didn't matter. Hair nets were a must accessory back then. They came in handy if the wind kicked up or it started to rain or she was in a boat going for a ride or she'd just had her hair done and she wanted to be sure to keep it in place. Hair nets came in colors. Her hair nets were always black or if she was wearing a bouffant type, they were always pink. I was used to seeing her in a hair net. They were as common as earrings are today. She even had a dresser drawer dedicated to hair nets. My mother eventually grew away from wearing hair nets when styles became more casual although she kept some near just in case. I never knew her to grow her hair. It was always short and t...

I knew this photo existed. I just couldn't put my hands on it until one day last week-one day during the month of July. Finding the photo in a pile of old photos in a trunk kept in the garage has led me to believe there really can be Christmas in July! Before I thought it was just hype. A great phrase to use as a marketing tool when sales slack off in the heat of summer. But now I feel differently. Finding the photo of me in my nightgown opening a gift on a Christmas morning and my mother sitting on the couch nearby with her hair done up in bobby pins was like opening a gift on Christmas morning with the snow coming down and Bing Crosby and Dean Martin and Andy Williams taking turns with the entertainment. While today-at this very moment as I write this post-there is no snow outside or pile of unopened presents in the living room stacked beneath a tinsel-laden Christmas tree decorated with ornaments bought at Newberry's and Woolworths and while there is no Santa ...

At first I thought I'd be getting pretty brave when posting my graduation picture along with my Cher era photo. Now that I'm doing it, I realize it doesn't matter. It's worth a laugh or two. Hair is just that-hair.We all have photos of our hairstyles and cringe at how we wore our hair at certain times. But each particular time tells about a chapter in our life. It might be a good or bad or sad chapter but all those chapters add to what is our own, one-of-a-kind story and our hair is a part of that story. When I was born my parents told me I had so much hair that the nurses kept it gathered on top of my head in a 'whisp.' In fact the nurses called me Whisteria. As I grew into a little girl, my mother often French braided my hair. When I was a pre-teen she took me to a barber shop and had my hair chopped off into a sort of Buster Brown hairstyle. That's the way it stayed until I became a teen. That's when I took over. Most every night in my freshman ...

Did you ever look at an old photo and wish you could remember being in that moment; wish you could recall the conversation and remember who was around and figure out how that moment came about? When I look at the attached photo, I wonder. And I wish I could remember that day, sitting outside of my grandparents' farmhouse in the summertime behind my grandmother's tulip patch. I'm seated to the left in the wicker chair. My older brother is seated across from me and our cousin who is four months older than me is sitting between us. We appear to be having a snack or lunch. I appear to have my snack in my lap. That was probably a good idea because whatever I was eating most likely would have fallen to the ground and most likely a dog named Pepper who was most likely nearby would have enjoyed whatever I was supposed to be eating. We are probably drinking milk. As I grew older I remember enjoying the homemade lemonade my grandmother would make, using her lemon squeezer and ...

This is the one and only time I remember my grandmother ever wearing jeans and sneakers. She was going berry-picking while visiting one of her six daughters and family. I can only imagine the laughs they had as that particular daughter was lots of fun just like her mother. I wasn't there but something tells me they filled that bucket she is holding more than once. And I'm sure when my grandmother was back home, she baked some strawberry-rhubarb pies. As far back as I can remember, my grandmother always wore a house dress with black shoes that tied up the front so seeing her dressed in jeans was like seeing a whole other side of her. She had an assortment of house dresses. They all had pockets. Most were a muted plaid material. Probably a cotton. On special occasions she'd wear one of her good dresses and if she was cooking, she'd wear an apron. While I don't remember ever picking berries with my grandmother, I do remember enjoying the pies she'd bake by comb...

I have three siblings. The youngest was born in May-the same month I turned twelve. I was very excited to have this baby brother especially with summer vacation coming, I knew I'd get to spend lots of time with him. What I didn't know was just how much and in what way. I can't remember exactly when it happened, but soon after my mother came home from the hospital with him, she discovered she had a blood clot in her left leg. All I remember her telling me in the middle of the night was she'd experienced pain in her leg. It had turned black. They woke me up to listen for the baby while my father rushed my mother to the hospital. Back then the treatment for such a blood clot was far different than it is today. My mother ended up staying in the hospital for most of the summer. I was taken out of school early to help. My aunt who lived next door-a nurse with four children-stepped in as well. She'd take my baby brother as much as she could which was a lot. He'd ...

I was in Morocco visiting my daughter, an ESL instructor. I'd brought along a children's book I'd written & illustrated plus a little doll for us to use with her students. After visiting the school, we caught the Marrakesh Express in Casablanca-destination Marrakesh! I could hear Crosby, Stills & Nash in every nook of that old train, chugging past shepherds using cell phones while sitting on donkeys.  And while onboard that train, I made a friend. I never did learn her name. She was a beautiful, young girl sitting across from us with her mother and grandmother. While language was a barrier, it didn't matter. We communicated just fine. When the train slowed and it became apparent it was their stop, I reached into my purse, pulled out the doll and gestured to the mom if I could give the doll to her daughter. Her smile said it all. As they disappeared into the crowd I watched as the young girl held the doll up for me to see, waving the little doll in the gent...

When I was in high school, girls were more often than not encouraged by their guidance counselors to go into nursing or teaching. Or, they had their own plan to get married and raise a family. Throughout my senior year, my mother kept after me, "What are you going to do after graduation?Where are you going to apply?" It didn't help that my two best friends had known all along what they wanted to do and they had their applications in to prove it. One was going for nursing; the other teaching. I was clueless. While I never liked high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do when it was finally over. Well actually I did but my mother would have kicked me out of the house. You see, all I wanted to do was write. It didn't matter what I was writing as long as I was in that mode. So if I'd had my way I would have stayed sitting at my desk in my bedroom writing. Needless to say, that never happened. Throughout that last year my mother kept throwing ideas at me. Sh...

When I was in my early teens my parents added a room on to our home out in the country. That space would become my mother's fabric shop where she eventually sold not only fabrics of all sorts but everything else needed for the sewing process including patterns, zippers, bias tape, buttons-even hat forms and feathers and jewels to decorate one's hat creations. My mother had the shop decorated in fine antiques, providing warm and inviting displays for the bolts of fabric in season at the time. On Saturday mornings my grandmother offered sewing classes. She and my mother were fine seamstresses. That's where I learned how to sew although I never reached their level of craftsmanship.I loved that fabric shop. It provided me endless hours of imaginative play when the closed sign was on the door. Recently when involved in a home renovation I came across what had been a focal point of my mother's fabric shop-a small, antique, hand-painted, working sewing machine whic...

Funny how certain things remain in your heart as you grow up. You don't judge their value monetarily. Rather, their value stems from the feelings they evoke; the memories they stir; the senses they ignite. Their value to you is priceless. It could be as something as small as a tea cup to something as big as a car. Whatever that favorite thing is, all that matters is that connection in your heart. My favorite old coat has remained in my heart ever since growing up in the country. It seems like only yesterday when my mother came home from an afternoon of shopping in our once busy downtown with a big box just for me. It wasn't Christmas. It wasn't my birthday. It was just an ordinary day. Ordinary, that is, until I opened that box and discovered a brownish tweed wool coat wrapped in white tissue paper. It wasn't even that time of the year for wearing a coat but that never crossed my mind as I jumped up and pulled the coat out of the box. It was love at first sight for ...

I never realized the skill and patience it takes to create French braids. My mother created them all the time and every time I was told by adults how perfect they were. Their remarks were part of the routine that started when I'd sit down at the kitchen table and stay still. On the table sat a tall glass of water with one of those skinny black combs, some hair clips and rubber bands. Back then there wasn't a slew of licensed characters on barrettes so I never whined for anything fancier than the simple, brown hair clips my mother bought at Newberry's or Woolworths. They didn't come in a variety of colors. They weren't decorated with little flowers or butterflies or ladybugs. They were basic brown-like my hair. I don't remember it hurting when in the process of getting my hair French braided. I do remember my mother pulling and separating strands and then as she twisted the strands, she'd move farther and farther back from the table. When the braid was in...

I sometimes find myself wondering how my kids survived growing up without all the safety products and warnings and whole foods and organic products now on the market. Back then when driving a car, what we used for a car seat was our right arm, automatically reacting when danger lurked. Without a thought, that arm sprang into action, saving the child from going into a dashboard or a window or being thrown onto the floor as the car kept going on its way. An arm didn't come with all the bells and whistles those safety seats come with today. Some of those seats have nooks and crannies for drinks and coloring books and crayons and other favorite things. And to keep the little ones content on longer trips, their attention can be grabbed by videos or movies playing on small screens right in front of them. I could have used such technology a few times. I remember a 3-hour drive with a toddler in the back seat, roaming around at will, crawling on the floor of the car and nestling in the b...

I don't keep it a secret that Winter is by far my favorite season. But that doesn't mean I can ignore the smells and colors of Fall and the sound of leaves when shuffling through them or the splendor of a Summer garden or the tinge of excitement when the Earth is awakening to Spring and robins come back home and thoughts of playing hopscotch on a sidewalk that's been buried in snow makes you go searching for chalk of any size, any color. Having grown up in the country, Spring surrounded us. With the creek out back pushing far beyond its banks and geese flying high above us, my cousins and I frolicked outside until dragged inside and when we went inside, we'd most likely be soaking wet from playing in a stream that ran alongside our grandparents' farmhouse. If the weather changed and the temperature dipped, that little stream would turn to ice. But that didn't stop us. We'd find shovels or picks and open our highway back up so we could find some twigs and...

My grandmother had a small white stand-alone cupboard in her farmhouse kitchen. When they sold the farm, that cupboard went right along with them to the next kitchen. If any of us little ones were worried the contents of that cupboard would change in new surroundings, our worries were put to rest the first time we sat around the same kitchen table that we'd sat around before and were served our most favorite treat of all-Graham Crackers-kept in the middle draw of that cupboard along with Fig Newtons and Lorna Doons. Back then there was only one flavor of Graham Crackers and that was-Graham Crackers. No matter what we were drinking-milk, coffee, or hot chocolate-those graham crackers tasted even more delicious when dipped into our cup or glass. I'm sure we went through more than one pack of those crackers at each sitting but who kept track. We'd all keep talking as we enjoyed our snack at that kitchen table. We also enjoyed graham crackers after our aunt took us swim...

When I was growing up it seemed as if every block around where I lived had a corner store. None of them were alike. There were no neighborhood corner store chains back then so each had its own personality. More often than not the actual store was located in the front part or the side part of the owner's home. When you walked into the store you might have been able to smell dinner cooking beyond the closed door leading into the home. You might have found a bell on the counter next to a manual cash register and underneath the bell there might have been a sign telling you "Ring if you need service." Most always the person waiting on you was the owner himself. That was his full-time job and if he had to be out of the store for some reason, his wife or an older child would be the one waiting on you. Neighborhood corner stores were family businesses. You were called by your first name. You were asked about your family. And if you didn't have enough to cover what you were ...