The Reindeer Keeper

Growing up in the country there are places that become favorite places when you are young and playing and pretending with friends throughout the year. And when the seasons change, the play changes as well. I did most of my playing with my cousins. Mainly, my cousin Carol.  I've written about my grandfather's barn with two large haylofts connected by a wooden bridge and the empty chicken roosts empty because my grandfather had to close down his farm due to asthma. I've gone on and on about the chicken coop void of chickens, cleaned out, then filled with the remains of a closed one-room schoolhouse up the road. Those remains included the books, desks and chalkboards. Students were being bussed to nearby public schools. That happened before my parents moved us to the country. (Us meaning my sister, my brother and me).  The chicken coop void of chickens and filled with the remains of the one-room schoolhouse is where I would play with my cousins most days after school, on the w...

 The photo shows my grandparents' farmhouse of long ago. The house was sold after my grandfather stopped farming the fields and the barn, that once housed chickens and cows and horses with kids running around playing, became silent and empty. That's when my grandparents built a smaller home on land that was part of the farm, big enough to house my grandparents and one of my aunts. But way before that farmhouse was sold I had so much fun with my cousins playing inside and outside that home. There was no TV. No internet. There were no video games. No cell phones. If there had been such things, there would have been no time to bother with them. Playing and pretending were top priority.  It never took much to amuse us. I remember one summer it just took a few pairs of scissors, some straight pins and used magazines and we were good to go for days, playing on the screened-in porch of that farmhouse.  I can't remember if it was an officially declared 'Club' we created. It...

It was the Christmas when I was seven that I found a desk under the tree with my name on it. I’d smelled the shellac when hurrying down the front stairs. I didn’t know what it was until I was told my grandfather used something called shellac when making the desk out of pine. It had two shelves on the right side and a single drawer in the front. When I opened the drawer I found a pad of lined paper with a No. 2 sharpened, yellow pencil. From that moment on I considered desks to be magical. My best friend back then was an only child. I loved running through our side yard to go play with her. Once inside the pale yellow house with a back stairway that took us up to her bedroom, we spent time not only in her room but spare rooms full of stuff as well. Going from one room to another we’d have to walk by a desk sitting in a nook all by itself. It was my friend’s desk. It was a roll top desk and whenever I could, I’d sit in the chair and pull the top back and be taken away by the ...

I wish this old photo was clearer. That's me center front with my arms spread wide. I don't know what I was doing or who took it-probably with a Brownie camera. While it is blurry you still can see the field that led from our chicken coop clubhouse to our grandparent's old farmhouse. The chicken coop would have been to the left of me. Trudging through the hayfield is my fellow-cousin-girls-club-member-of-the-chicken-coop leading two of our little students back through the field-probably on their way home after class. They look like they were dressed up so it might have been a special day at the chicken coop schoolhouse. It looks like everyone had a great day. Stools seem to have been gathered outside for some reason. You can see an old record player with a collection of 45s waiting to be played. Funny thing about that-the chicken coop clubhouse didn't have electricity. But when you use your imagination-that doesn't matter. Maybe that's what I was doing-singi...

I recently learned that surprises can come after Christmas too when I went to the post office and found a slip in my mailbox. There was a package for me. I couldn't figure out who it'd be from since anything I'd ordered had arrived-been wrapped-put under the tree-and opened on Christmas morning. When the box was brought to the counter I learned it was from my book publisher. I was clueless as to what was inside. I wasn't expecting anything. Once home, I put the box on the table and opened it which wasn't easy because whatever was inside had been carefully packaged. After all the bubble wrap and styrofoam peanuts were put aside, I turned whatever it was over and was dumbfounded by what I read. There in front of me, beautifully framed, was a 'Certificate of Success' awarded me for 'outstanding achievement in Book Sales for 'The Reindeer Keeper' dated December 1, 2012. The Certificate included a photo of the book cover and was signed by the publ...

It was like combining FAO Schwarz, Disney Land, and the North Pole into one. That's what it felt like when our grandparents, aunts, uncles and parents bought the remaining items from an abandoned schoolhouse and filled the old chicken coop with those desks, chalkboards, and books-lots of books. It'd been void of chickens for some time but there were still bits of feathers drifting about. Most of the windows were missing glass; the door crooked but none of that mattered to us even when it snowed inside. We declared it to be the Girls Club but allowed our boy cousin to join and when that cousin who wore dresses came to visit she was allowed in too but I think we might have been mean to her at times. Not really mean but throwing our weight around because we were older-and we certainly didn't wear dresses as we played and pretended in that old coop. Looking back we were babysitters of the younger cousins in the summertime and we didn't even realize it. To us,they were o...