Venison, Anyone?

I live where the lots are fifty feet wide and almost every lot boasts a house. But still we have our creeks and trees and wildlife to
make our city a great place to live.

The deer are especially interesting. Sometimes its just one little lonely deer coming through my yard, and once it was a whole herd of twenty or more that I watched come up from a dry creek nearby and disappear behind the house across the street.

I've seen deer climb up on a big snowbank to avoid an oncoming car. I've had many deer in my back yard eating the apples that have fallen from the apple tree. It's a wonderful sight. One time, my cat sat in the kitchen window watching the deer eat my
fallen fruit. One of the deer happened to notice my cat in the window and started staring at her. The cat stared back. They kept this up for quite awhile until I started to think they had fallen in love and the buck would crash through my window to be with
his lady love. So I took my cat away to avoid such a catastrophe.

But there is sadness, too. Around Easter of this year, as it was turning dark, my widowed neighbor got a call from the police.
They told her she was going to hear a gunshot in her back yard, but not to worry. There was a wounded deer lying there suffering and another neighbor saw this and called the police. The police came and shot the doe and carried her out to the curb to be picked up later. The doe would have had her baby in a few weeks, but it was not to be. I don't know how she was injured.

But life goes on. And wild life will go on in my neighborhood, too. And I think it is a good thing.

America's Little Darling

During the dark days of the Great Depression, Providence sent us a wonderful gift: a darling little girl with saucy curls all around her head, a dimpled, cheerful smile and talent for singing and dancing. Not to forget, she could really act, too. When she turned on the tears, you forgot about your own troubles and sympathized with the character she was playing. She was a wonder!

Today is her birthday. She is eighty-two years old! And I hope she has many more, and that they are good ones.

It's time that we received something equally wonderful!

Instead of crime, violence and the crap that we get today on TV and elsewhere, we need a healthy shot in the arm of up-lifting ideas. There must be some creative brains out there that are hiding their light under a bushel.

We don't need another Shirley Temple, of course. I hope that what it is that we so desperately need is on its way to us as I write this. I don't know what or who it will be, though.

I'll be patiently waiting.

Aunt Mabel

My aunt Mabel was perfect! At least that's what I thought when I was a young child. I wanted to grow up to be just like her.
I think I almost worshipped her sometimes.

She was the secretary to the dean of our local junior college. She had gone to a business school in a bigger city, and she really knew her stuff. I remember seeing the college yearbook from the 1930's where she was photographed with the dean and the caption read "The Owl and the Pussy Cat". Mabel was the pussy cat.

Mabel knew how to dress. Big white hats, white collars on dark clothes. Stunning! She was usually smiling her pretty dimpled smile, just making you feel good. Mabel seemed to like having a six-pack near by, but I never saw her acting ridiculous! She was always the perfect lady. Much like my sister, the school teacher, was. It just wasn't in me, though, to be the perfect lady.

I felt so honored one day when I was about nine, and Mabel was sitting in an easy chair and her leg fell asleep. She asked me if I would rub her leg and get the circulation going again. So I knelt at her feet and did the best job I knew how. Finally, I could do something nice for Mabel! She was always doing something for me.

Mabel finally met the man of her dreams, Henry. Henry lived in Michigan, so Mabel moved to Michigan where they got married and lived on Henry's brother's farm. Mabel was now a secretary to one of the executives of the Pontiac Motor Company. One day Mabel and Henry decided to go farming in Southern Minnesota, just vegetables, no cows, maybe chickens. On the automobile ride to
Minnesota, Henry suddenly took sick and died. So Mabel went back to live in Michigan. She came to Minnesota and visited us once in awhile, but then she met Bob a widower with grown children and she married again and lived in Michigan. Later, she and Bob went to Turkey, of all places, to live where Bob taught people the ropes in the Turkish Steel mills. She came back and gave me a present from Turkey!

Well, that was just like Mabel, my dear aunt. Mabel and Bob spent their retirement years in Clearwater, Florida until Mabel had a losing struggle with Parkinson's disease and died in a nursing home in Michigan.

Rest in peace, dear Aunt Mabel.

Is Government Bad?

I once had a little four-year-old boy along with his younger sister who was three. So when I left them in care of a baby-sitter I usually bribed them to be good while I was gone by bringing home something from the "dime store" for their enjoyment.

One winter's day I went downtown to shop and bought my two little ones a big wad of play money. I gave it to the oldest, and
told him to divide up between himself and his little sister because I was going to be to busy with the usual chores.

So they sat on the floor with the play money and preceded to do as they were told. When I glanced over to see how things were developing, I couldn't believe my eyes!

Little son had divided the "money" into three piles!

"Who is the extra pile for?" I asked my little boy.

"It's for the government," he replied.

"What did you say?!!!" I exclaimed in a very shocking tone.

"Government". explained my son.

The little girl piped up with "Is that a bad word, Mama?"

High School Art Class

When I was in high school in Northern Minnesota, I had a wonderful art teacher, Miss Ylinen.

She was like a friend, even coming to my home and visiting, and inviting me to her apartment.

But she got married, and in my town, in those days, if you were a woman and you got married,

well, that was the end of your teaching career in that school district.

She was my inspiration. She introduced me to oil painting, water colors and drawing with color crayons on muslin fabric and even puppet making.

I did a painting in class of a little girl playing a piano, and Miss Ylinen liked it. She told me that

she was going to enter it into a competition in Pittsburgh, PA. But before she could get it ready to be mailed, she had to have permission from the principal or somebody higher. So Mr. Skustad

came to look at the entries one day and when he looked at mine he remarked, "You are not going to waste postage on that painting, are you?"

"Yes, I certainly am!" she replied. And she did. She was allowed to go to Pennsylvania to view

all the entries, 1200 of them, from kids all over the nation. When she came back, she told me

that when she started up the steps, the first painting she saw was mine! It won a Certificate of Merit with a gold seal, yet!

Miss Ylinen eventually got married and went to live in California. There she was hired by the

Walt Disney studios. I think she probably painted the backgrounds for many of the Disney

animated movies. Of course, I lost touch with her, but I will never forget her.