The Reindeer Keeper

I recently took the attached photo showing geese coming back to a creek where I played when growing up in the country alongside cousins and siblings. We were always outside playing and going on adventures and that rambling creek was most always included no matter the season and no matter the weather. This time of the year, as shown in the photo, the creek would overflow its banks in a spring thaw and we'd be right there; standing as close as possible to the edge of the creek trying not to get soaked. But most times we'd get drenched as we'd take turns throwing chunks of ice or, if the conditions were right, throwing snowballs along with the chunks of ice at larger chunks of ice moving along the open water. Sometimes when eating supper we'd watch muskrats sitting on those big chunks, hitching a ride down the creek to wherever the big chunks took them. Summer found us making forts along the creek bed using fallen limbs and branches to hide us from the enemy. Inside

Years back if you'd opened that door in the photo and walked inside, you would have discovered a talented and hard-working woman who spent her life in the world of dance; teaching dance to anyone willing to learn. Of course, willing to learn, in her book, meant possessing the ability to listen, to pay attention, to be able to take criticism and then accepting the criticism which she herself described as "essential." It didn't matter if you were a young child-a moody teenager or nervous adult. If you were in her School of Dance, this instructor let it be known that she was there to teach. Lack of attention or fooling around would not be tolerated. The instructor's name was Ruth Dumas, who at the age of sixteen, moved to New York City to study dance.To pay for her lessons and expenses, she'd assist with instruction. After opening her school of dance when returning to her hometown in 1935, Ruth kept studying dance during the summers in New York City with Danc

For a time, my mother had a fabric shop out in the country. It was an addition added on to our home. The best thing about that little fabric shop was that it provided me hours of creating when I shut the door in the evening. I'd tell my mother I was going to do some homework. I did do homework for a while. But when it came time to do my math, I'd turn my attention to the bolts of fabric and the pattern books, and especially the antique hutch full of items used to make hats. That antique hutch was so much more than a hutch. It was magical. Full of colors and possibilities. Before I began my creating, I'd take loose leaf paper and scribble some designs. To get the juices going, I'd open the pattern books and look at the sketched models for different ideas and ways to wear the hats. Most of the models on the pages wore hats, especially in Vogue. I guess I thought I was a hat designer. Anyway, hat frames came in different shapes. Once I decided on the frame, the fun beg

I've posted this photo before showing me with my cousin standing on a sidewalk in what used to be the downtown of our hometown. It was taken after a parade in the summertime. We'd been part of a float celebrating the 19th Amendment. This is the only personal photo I have of that downtown. I can't run out and take a new photo because the downtown is no longer there. All that remains are a few buildings that escaped the wrecking ball. The rest of that downtown is tucked away in my heart. There are so many memories:enjoying milkshakes at soda fountains; stopping at at my uncle's shoe store where a merry-go-round for kids was quite popular; spending time in a small bookstore with my mother and feeling my imagination stirred by the smell of all those printed words in one space; going with my mother to a fancy dress shop and being told to sit in a chair and not to budge an inch; going with my mother to a men's shop that I seem to remember had two doors, and of all the