The Reindeer Keeper

My grandfather was a hard-working farmer. He and my grandmother provided a good life for their six daughters. They did it all. Each had their list of duties from ice harvesting on the St. Lawrence in the depth of winter to haying in the hot sticky days of June; along with planting gardens which led to weeding, picking, slicing, cooking, canning produce and filling the root cellar. Then there was the sewing, knitting, cleaning, tending to children, tending to barn animals and machinery and the list goes on. Point is, my grandparents worked hard every day with no days off. Memories of my grandfather are precious. I can see him splitting wood in the woodshed just outside a door of the kitchen in the farmhouse. I can hear the ax hit the wood; remember the splinters of the wood go flying through the air. I can see him coming in from the backfield with a load of hay driving his small red Ford tractor over the plank bridge spanning Sucker Creek, then over flat rock and on to the bar...

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 don’t remember when I started the Christmas tradition of making gingerbread boys to fill a few of my old tin cans but that doesn’t matter because today the tradition continued. I’m sure the gingerbread boys don’t look like much of a tradition sitting in those old tin cans; faceless and awkward, without icing hair or icing eyes or icing mouths or icing buttons down their fronts. Some are plump. Some have hands or feet that don’t match. One gingerbread boy left one of his arms in the cookie cutter and I had to perform emergency surgery. But to me they don’t need to be perfect. Nothing’s perfect. To me it’s the feeling I get when seeing them sitting in those old tin cans in celebration of Christmas; sitting there faceless yet oh so full of the spirit of the season without frills or fancy ribbons or designer names attached. They’re never eaten or dunked in coffee. They just sit there in their old tin cans as the snow falls and the north wind blows and Christmas comes and go...

I remember the evening my parents walked into our house situated on a lane with their arms full of bags and boxes; some wrapped and decorated with curly ribbon. They’d been downtown Christmas shopping. They’d been gone a long time. While our father took the babysitter home, our mother told my brother and me to go upstairs and get our pajamas on; then come back down and stay in the living room while she put things away. I watched her put one box on the dining room table as I hurried up the front stairs. When our father returned, we were told to sit by the tree in the living room. I could hear them whispering in the dining room. Then in they walked with my mother carrying that box she’d placed on the dining room table. Sitting in a chair by the tree my mother handed the box to my father. I can see him standing there still wearing a tie. He was always wearing a tie. Sometimes he’d be wearing a tie as he strung the tree with strands of blue lights. My father loved those blue lights....

When I was a little girl my mother would take me to a barber shop to get my hair cut. It was situated in the heart of the downtown in my hometown. It was a perfect location; right where the two main streets crossed and in wait of Christmas, a plastic Santa in his sleigh with his reindeer were strung over top those streets. It was a huge draw to the downtown. When the wind blew I was convinced those reindeer were flying. To me that barber shop was as good or better than any beauty parlor around. But then, I'd never been in any of those fancier places where women and girls went for styles and perms with lots of hair spray and hair curlers and hair teasing and big awkward hair dryers; maybe even some Dippity Do. It wasn't time for me to move on to a beauty parlor. I loved going to the barber shop. Following my mother up what might have been winding cement steps, we'd go through the door leading to a very large area. That was the barber shop. I think there were four barbe...

There’s a particular tree out behind the barn whose leaves are the first to turn when summer fades to fall. I took a few pictures as that process began again and as I did I found myself looking at that magnificent tree with even greater wonder. I’m not sure why. It could have been the softness of the sun or the quiet of the small meadow where the tree stands tall reaching to the heavens with late season wildflowers spreading about in the tall grass. As September rolled on, the tree kept pulling me back to take more pictures as its leaves became drenched in vibrant colors and the scents of pumpkins and apples told the story of a most magical season evolving into the next. When I went out back one day this past week I found the tree about barren. It looked tired in October’s shadows. I couldn’t figure out how that had happened. It seemed like only yesterday that its branches were dressed in leaves of oranges and reds. Its spirit seemed strong no matter how hard the wind blew or...

My mother was a RN. When I was very young she worked nights at our local hospital, eventually becoming Charge Nurse in the ER. She worked nights so my father could be home with me and my older brother. On the nights she had to work my mother would feed us early. Then she’d give us our baths; put us in our pajamas and with what time was left, she’d get herself ready. I loved watching my mother as she transformed from mother to a professional; dressed in a flawless white, crisp uniform with white nylons and white polished duty shoes. Her hair was out of the pin curls she’d had in place most of the day. Once she styled her hair, my mother would take bobby pins and secure her starched white cap with a black ribbon around the bottom in place while not messing up her hairdo. On cold nights she’d wear her nurse’s cape. It was navy blue with the initials of the hospital on the turned-up collar. As soon as my father arrived I was carried to the car and put in the back seat with my brothe...