The Reindeer Keeper

  I've been thinking about the day I took this photo a few years ago. It was mid-January and although it doesn't look it, the temperature was below zero. It was a day like the recent days we've been experiencing. Beautiful and sunny, then absolutely earth shattering frigid cold when the sun goes down. Even the moon, as glorious and bright as it has been, is unable to warm the night. I remember standing there in the snow, dressed in layers and shivering as I took some photos and as I took the photos, I listened to the Amish men, laughing and talking as they cut through the ice, then loaded those blocks onto wagons to take back home and store in their barns or sheds. A dog they had with them barked as the cattails snapped to my touch and geese said good morning. The horses stood in place, a few curious of my presence. I remember hearing and reading stories my Aunt Helen wrote in a family cookbook of my grandfather, bundled up in his fur coat and cap and his horses covered in ...

With the last few days being below zero I went to my survival kit for help. There are no hand warmers or candles or blankets or hot tea in that kit. There's actually no kit. But there are memories of my grandmother's Johnny Cake recipe and my mother's recipe for a soup that came to be known as her Witch's Brew. Both recipes warm a below zero string of days and nights. So yesterday I got busy. A main ingredient in the Witch's Brew is acini d'pepe. Those tiny little balls of macaroni are what my kids most remember and most enjoyed. That's probably because, to them, those little balls resembled little eyeballs in the Witch's Brew. They were eating eyeballs! Lucky for me I had a few boxes of the eyeballs in the cupboard so out they came along with whatever else I needed. With the soup in the works, I brought out the cornmeal for the Johnny Cake which I turned into little muffins. As the wind howled and the furnace went nonstop and the music played and the Wi...

Along with the Christmas ornaments my parents bought at what was once a Woolworths store in what was once a downtown, and along with an old, tattered elf dressed in now a faded green-one of my father's favorite elves-I've again gathered all the Santas big and small that were brought out to celebrate Christmas. A few, like the ones hand painted over fifty years ago and the tiny ones bought at a Britts Dept. Store when I was the Ad Manager, and the ones still intact but a little ripped, part of a paper chain and those bought at craft shows over the years all hung on the tree. Some of the Santas on display about the house I'd discovered in a magical shed full of Christmas wreaths and one-of-a-kind, handmade decorations and centerpieces out on a back country road-the very same place we've gone to for years in search of the perfect Christmas tree. One of those precious Santas came with its own wicker sled with its own wooden reindeer and miniature toys. The other one is made...

When I was a freshman, or maybe a sophomore in high school, one of my classes was typing. Sitting down, looking at the keys for the first time, I never thought I'd be able to master such a funny looking machine. But it wasn't long before I felt comfortable sitting in front of it. That was due to the instructor. She put me at ease. Once I learned where to place my fingers on the keys, I was ready to go. I can still hear her putting the class through drills that taught us the location of the letters on the keys.      "J-K-L-Semicolon." "A-S-D-F."  She'd repeat those drills like stanzas in a song. It wasn't long before I knew the keyboard. I loved sitting there typing with all my peers typing. It was a chorus of the keys. Humming and clicking along. When reaching the end of a line, the sound of bells dinging announced it was time to reach up, move the return bar and start all over again.  My love of typewriters and typing stayed with me long after compl...