The Reindeer Keeper

I never knew about the left side or the right side of the brain when growing up and despising arithmetic. I just knew I could not stand columns of numbers with plus or minus signs or some marked with an X or others with another sign. I never had enough fingers to use when counting. There was no wiggle room when getting the right answer. It had to be exact. Two and two always equaled four. This thing called exactness was why I preferred English-preferably writing. There's lots more freedom. You aren't tied to a formula. Your answers-your essays-whatever it is you write-is all yours. No one else will have the exact same story or essay as yours. I liked that. Life is not exact. Why should what you do be exact? My distain for arithmetic-for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing-took a nasty turn once I had to take Algebra. My disdain for exactness had met its match. I was horrified by formulas and rules that made no sense and questions I did not understand. My mother as...

When I was growing up there were two high schools in my hometown. One was a public school; the other Catholic. Through my early Junior High school years my uncle taught boys basketball at the Catholic school. This was a perk for me and my cousin. We got to go to the games and strut around, thinking we were something because we had ties to the coach-as if it mattered to anyone else in that gymnasium. We knew the names of all the players. We'd cheer them on as if they knew or cared who we were. Looking back I realize now they never even knew we existed. But when you're that age, younger than any of the players and your uncle is their coach, imagination is a wonderful thing. If anyone of them had even looked our way I know we would have died! Eventually the Catholic high school closed and the students were merged into the public school. High school basketball games were lots of fun-especially when we'd e playing a big rival. Those were the times there'd be lot...