The Reindeer Keeper

  With the geese flying and the leaves turning, Autumn is upon us with all of its splendor. And now with those leaves falling, walking through them is as enjoyable as it was when growing up.  Besides walking through them when growing up, raking them was just as fun. My cousin and I would rake them into a huge pile. Then we would divide them into smaller piles. From those smaller piles we would construct leaf houses using our rakes as our tools. After forming leaf walls into place, we would divide the house into rooms. The bedrooms would be complete with leaf beds complete with leaf pillows. The kitchen would include a leaf table with matching leaf chairs. We played in our leaf houses until the wind blew them away. When outside the other day, watching my grandson raking leaves that had fallen and then jumping into the huge pile of leaves he created, I had the strangest thought.  The best Toy Company ever is the one created by Mother Nature, if that was ever possible. When ...

Green beans fresh from the garden were favorites growing up. Whether my grandmother was feeding a hungry crew in from the fields during haying season or whether she'd prepared some green beans for a family summer get together in her backyard, her green beans were always so delicious. When we'd gather for picnics those green beans quickly disappeared. They were consistent in their taste. All she did after cooking them was add some milk, a bit of butter, salt and pepper. I can still see her sitting outside on the back stoop of her farmhouse in her house dress and apron, cutting the ends off the beans, then slicing those beans fresh from the garden. My mother sometimes sat outside to cut the ends off her green beans, then slice them into pieces but more often than not, she'd have me do it. Maybe that's because I'd snip those ends off in record time. Slice them just as fast and enjoy a few along the way. After they were cooked, she prepared them as my grandmother did. T...

I loved paper dolls. I had a shoebox full of them. I kept the shoebox in the bottom drawer of an old dresser in my bedroom. Sometimes I'd sit on the floor and play out scenarios with them. I named each one of them.They were like little friends to me. None were licensed characters. None came with sparkly outfits. They were just paper dolls. And that was all I needed. Most of my paper dolls came from Newberry's or Woolworths. It was always fun when shopping for paper dolls. Of course, Santa Claus made sure to bring me even more. It was exciting when deciding which outfit each of my paper dolls would be wearing. Sometimes they'd have to change more than once during a scenario depending on what they were doing. They always had lots of fun whether going to the beach or school, on a picnic or visiting friends or taking care of their puppies or kittens. Whatever they were doing, they were fashionably dressed for the occasion. One evening, like many other evenings, I had my ...

Funny how we never know how great something is until we are looking back. On warm, summer days at supper time when growing up in the country with those four houses full of relatives all in a row, each family would bring whatever they'd prepared to eat together under my aunt's pine trees in her backyard. It became a smorgasbord of hot and cold dishes with all the trimmings. Back then it was the food that I thought about-potato salads, macaroni salads, baked beans, tossed salads, fruit salads, of course hots and hams and all the trimmings plus an assortment of chips. I don't remember many desserts-except for strawberry shortcake with real dumplings made soggy by berry juice and home-made whipped cream smothering the bowl. Of course it all tasted even better because we were eating outside. After everyone was finished, the younger ones would sometimes play baseball as the others sat around and talked and family dogs would see what they could find in the grass or get t...