The Reindeer Keeper

Take a ride down most any country road in northern New York and you will see at one time or another, cornstalks lining up like soldiers out in the fields. Some of those fields seem to stretch as far as the horizon. Growing up about a mile out on one of those country roads, playing outside with my cousin whenever possible, cornstalks would on occasion become part of our pretending, especially in the summertime. There was a field adjacent to my grandparents' farmhouse and on certain days when our pretending was on overload, that field full of cornstalks would work its way into our adventure-like the time we found our way out to the middle of that field. Then plopped down and made a cornstalk house. That meant bending some stalks. Crushing a few to the ground for cornstalk tables & chairs. Crushing a few more for cornstalk beds with cornstalk pillows. We would pretend our cornstalk house had windows from which we could "spy on the adults." We were certain they never saw ...

Mr. Rogers once said, "Play is really the work of childhood." Growing up in the country my cousins and I were playing all the time. Not with toys, but outside, taking advantage of what nature provided us every season of the year. We never went to Disneyland. We never even thought to ask to go. Why would we. We had our own theme park. In the winter we'd be skating on the creek just out back and down the hill. It didn't matter how cold it was. That never stopped us. We'd even be down there skating at night. With the moon above and the stars glistening that was the best time of all to go skating on that old creek that turned into a waterway in the summertime-providing us even more fun as we'd guide our rafts made from telephone poles on endless adventures. It was named Sucker Creek for a reason. Whenever any of those suckers got on our rafts we'd take our steel poles used for steering the rafts and cast them back into the murky water. Fall proved to be ju...