The Reindeer Keeper

There's something about a back stairway that adds comfort to a home. They certainly did in my grandparent's old farmhouse. While the front oak stairway and banister were polished and kept immaculate, the backstairs were quite the opposite. Worn, made from planks of wood, some creaked; some were uneven. But they were such fun. We'd run up and down them-half running and half skipping through the five bedrooms and the bathroom with two doors. Tucked behind my grandmother's wood stove in the kitchen, you'd never know the stairs were there if the door was shut. My mother used to tell how she and her sisters would run down them in the winter, anxious to seek heat from the woodstove. When we were very young, we'd hurry up those stairs to bed when staying over, especially when the adults told us if we didn't-a man up the road would be stopping by to find out why we were still up. It worked every time. That's when we rushed up those stairs so fast that a few ti...

I know every family has those unique, in-family nicknames given to one another over the years. Most of the time just family members are aware of them and when you get together years later, those nicknames seem to slip right out. While people obviously mature and grow out of a strange, cute, or sarcastic name attached to them when they were younger, awkward situations can arise when a potentially new member to the family is introduced. That's when th e fun begins for family insiders! Our family certainly has had its share of nicknames. The most "famous" of them all continues to be the nickname "Giddy" given to my grandmother by my brother. He was the first grandchild and was unable to say grandmother. It came out Giddy and that stuck like glue to the most amazingly strong and beautiful-in-spirit woman I've ever known. Fact was she was called "Giddy" by most everyone who knew her. Other nicknames that have sprung up over the years-and I will n...

When I was a little older and when summer vacation hit, I'd stay up after the late news and watch the late movie with my father. He'd sit in his chair and would usually fall asleep before it was over. He always said dozing off in that chair was the best sleep ever for him. There was never a hesitation if I'd be able to watch any of the nightly, feature-length fil ms. They were all decent movies with no overload of special effects or violence or sex. They were good, solid movies with no effects needed. The acting did all of that. I'd either curl up on the couch or on the floor with blankets and a pillow and go off on adventures with Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Rita Hayworth, Marlon Brando, Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, Gregory Peck, William Powell, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Elizabeth Tayor, Richard Burton, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant, Doris Day, James Cagney, Kir...

To the right and down a bit on this page you will see a photo added this week of me standing between some neighboring kids in front of the Chicken Coop Clubhouse which I've written about in a few blogs. The photo points out the truth in the adage, "A picture is worth 1,000 words." Ramshackled with hardly any glass in the windows that small, old building was our DisneyWorld-the hub of our growing up in the country. It was a schoolhouse-a playhouse-a library-a restaurant-a stop along the way for stagecoaches or whatever else our imaginations pretended it to be. It provided us hours of creativity. It allowed us to explore the depths of childhood imagination. It instilled in us an excitement of the possibility. We learned sharing and responsibility; caring for those younger than we were; organizing events and carrying through with those events when the best laid plans hit roadblocks-just as life does when becoming adults. We read books; my favorites always by Laura Ingalls ...

When we could-meaning when there were no adults around-my cousin and I conducted experiments in my mother's kitchen. We'd take out my mother's big, yellow bowl and "make recipes." Sometimes we'd add the ingredients-just water and an egg as I remember-to a Jiffy cake mix and then devour the goo like soup. No need to bake it when you're experimenting. After all, it was a small cake mix; like drinking a milk shake! Before we'd make-up r ecipes we'd look out all the windows to make sure no one was coming; then we'd rush back into the kitchen and the fun would really begin! We'd start with one of those little cake mixes-most always white or yellow. Then we'd add whatever we could find; mushed-up bananas, cut-up cherries, peanut butter, jam of all sorts, pepper (Yes-Pepper-we were experimenting remember!), coconut, chocolate chips, more sugar-even brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, garlic (Yup-garlic),allspice, plus a dash or two or ...

Amazing how coffee is such a phenomenon. So many brands and so many ways to serve it besides the standard hot cup of coffee. Now you have choices with strange names like frappuccino-latte-caffe mocha-macchiato. Then you can choose to stir-whip-steam or shake-and drink and drink some more! Some of these brands are so recognizable that their locations are sought after destinations in metropolitan centers to rural locations and every place in between . When I think of coffee, I think of my aunt who loved to go out for breakfast at local diners or small eateries. She'd savor every bite and enjoy every drop of her brewed coffee served in a thick, milk-white ceramic cup with a saucer. She'd add a bit of milk and sugar and stir it until it was "pretty"-as she called it. The waitress would fill her cup up a few more times as we'd linger and talk and watch people come and go. It was always fun being with her at these places which, to my aunt, were more enjoyable than ...

Digging through a kitchen cupboard the other night I came across two cake tins that symbolize the celebration of birthdays out in the country. They're pretty worn but then they were used for every birthday when we were growing up. They're not very deep but they're not supposed to be. Both are shaped like Christmas trees and when stacked on top of each other-with icing in between-they make the perfect sized cake especially when you are young and it is your day on which the Christmas tree cake is made just for you. It didn't matter in what month a birthday fell. The cake was always the Christmas tree cake. On the morning of a birthday my mother would get the tins ready, coating them with butter and then covering the butter with a layer of flour. It seemed to me the making of the cake was an all-day procedure but I now realize my mother certainly did much more leading up to the celebration after dinner than just bake a cake. But I only cared about the cake-making goin...