The Undecorating Debate

A debate is raging among the women in Periwinkle County. Some have already put all their Christmas decorations away, making sure the new year does not arrive with even a single Santa remaining to observe the Rose Bowl. Others feel that it is okay to leave decorations up for a while, as long as they are back in their boxes before school starts. Still others say the expiration date for decorations coincides with the demise of the final Christmas cookie. One holdout claims it is only when the garbage guys come for Christmas trees that the artificial greens must join their more brittle cousins in obviation.

A debate also rages among the men of Periwinkle County, as to which of their wives is the craziest.

Pickups and Ice

Periwinkle County got an early freeze. Lows in the single digits, highs in the teens.

"What's Al Gore going to say about this!?! How are the tree huggers going to explain that so-called global warming now?!?" asked Push Limppaw, on his eponymous talk show on local radio WPCC. Geoffrey Storm, who teaches archeology at Cratchit State U, called in. He tried to explain that while the world really is getting hotter, and that is why the polar ice caps are melting, for places like Periwinkle County, the most notable result of global warming is greater extremes, hotter summers, colder winters. "What do you know?" sneered Push. "You only know about ancient stuff." "My specialty," huffed Dr. Storm, "is why cultures through the aeons have risen and fallen because of weather." "You're a pointy-headed elite liberal," shouted Push. Dr. Storm was shouting "I'm a Repub..." when Push cut his microphone off.

The most immediate result of the early freeze on Lake Fisher, though, was on the pickup trucks and snowmobiles. Guys were hauling ice fishing huts onto the lake. Guys were riding on snowmobiles on the lake in order to... well, apparently in order to fall through the ice. It was a false freeze. The ice looked solid on top, but its foundation was weak. Usually pickups don't go through the ice until March, when WPCC sponsors a contest to see who can predict most accurately when the first pickup of spring falls through. The winner gets a gallon of "Deer John," the spray that guarantees deer, and anybody else with a sense of smell, will not venture into your yard. This week, though, the deer stood on the banks of Lake Fisher and sneered as the pickups sank.

So far, four pickups and two snowmobiles and a motorcycle have gone down. "But Push Limppaw said on his show that it was solid," their owners said, as they watched their kids' college educations sink through the ice. "Not my fault," said Push. "I rely on the theory of ice solidity. The theory said the ice was strong enough, so it was. Those pickups went through the ice because their owners didn't work hard enough to save them. Or maybe they were foreign pickups... or..."

Another Argument Against Christmas Letters

Will Whitson has decided there will be no more Christmas letters from his house. At least, not from his new computer, which thinks it is smarter than he is. Annamae wrote something about Will concocting a delicious new dish for Christmas Eve dinner. She must have misspelled "delicious," and the computer decided to make a correction. So they told 200 people that Will had concocted something "devious" for Christmas eve supper. He wondered why so many people had been greeting him, in person or in email, with salutations like "So you're being devious again, eh?" He sort of likes it, though. Livens up his image. Now he signs himself as "Devious Will." It's ennui to mash a persimmon cryonic.

If This Is My Last Day

Delbert Eckler wants to drink this morning. It's been several days since he has imbibed. He's not sure how many. He tries not to keep count. Neither keeping count nor not-keeping count has ever kept him from drinking, finally, but right now he's trusting in the "no-count" method.

Del feels good when he doesn't drink. He's happy when he doesn't drink. But after a few days of feeling happy, the desire for booze drapes itself over him, like a hot blanket on a humid summer day. He's not sure why. He knows that drinkers say they drink to forget. All he can remember now that he wants to forget, though, is that he drinks.

Every time he drinks, he thinks about going to AA. But then everyone would know. Del is a secret drinker. Even his wife and children have no idea that he drinks. He never goes to bars. He doesn't drink at all when he's at a party or anyplace else that booze is served. He drinks only by himself. Maybe that's why he does it, just to get away, to have something that is his alone. But he knows that he could get away and have something that was his alone without drinking.

Greg Milhaus, the Presbyterian preacher, goes to AA. Everybody knows that, because Rev. Milhaus is quite open about it. It's part of his ministry, to be a model for others. Del thinks about going to Rev. Milhaus. Maybe they could have an AA group of two. Maybe...

Right now, though, he's thinking about the guy on the motorcycle. A drunk driver hit him. Del was the first one on the scene. He didn't know the man, but he held his hand until he died. Del doesn't worry about hurting someone when he drinks. He doesn't drink and drive. He just drinks and regrets.

When that guy got on his motorcycle, though, he had no idea it would be his last day on earth. Maybe he didn't even kiss his wife goodbye, just hopped on to go do... it doesn't matter what. It was his last day on earth, and up until a strange man was holding his hand in a ditch, he had no idea he was on the last page of his story.

So Del has decided not to drink today. If it's his last day on earth, he wants it to be a happy one.

Digital Picture Frames

A lot of people in Periwinkle County got those new-fangled digital picture frames for Christmas.

Two-year-old Clara Wembley was fascinated by the slideshow on the new digital frame of her nana, Kate Bates', until she realized that their mutt, Shingles, was in every photo, being the camera hound that he is. There he was, holding her blankie in his mouth. It reminded her that she had intended to shoot him.

On Christmas eve, hopped up on the sugar from a cache of cookies Kate had hidden but forgotten about, Shingles had grabbed her blankie right out of her hands and run off with it. The adults were too caught up in Christmas confusion to notice her plight. She has been plotting her revenge ever since. She went to the toy box, pulled out the bow and arrow of her big brother, Marp, and took aim at Shingles. Sort of. She couldn't get the arrow notched in the bow string, so she just walked over to Shingles and planted the suction cup on his bumpty. It didn't have much effect on Shingles. He just walked away like it was an honor to have an arrow sticking out of his behind. But it was very therapeutic to little Clara, sort of like the letter you write to the editor but don't send.

Other folks who received digital picture frames did not find them to be so therapeutic.

Pastor Patty is still trying to get her figure back after the birth of Remington's little sister. Her old friend [old in years, not in the time she has known him] and sort of mentor, Rev. Randall Nathan, keeps telling her it is not wise for a pastor to have too good a figure, which makes things a lot worse.

Kelly, the waitress at the Whistle & Thistle, saw that she has gained a few pounds since last Chirstmas, too. About 30. Kelly, though, is like a 300 pound diva playing Carmen. She hits the high notes as she vamps, even if the stage trembles when she sashays across it.

Prof. Ben "Seymour" Bottoms, Kate's husband, looked at the slide show, saw himself, and thought his father had come back to life. "It's a Christmas miracle," he shouted, "in reverse."

Kate herself was chagrined to see the dust bunnies in the corner in the photos. Kate is a woman of clear priorities. They include friendship and kindness, not housework. She believes that "it is better to light one candle than to clean the darkness." She doesn't mind the dust bunnies; she just doesn't want photographic evidence.

Melva "Mickie" Rivers was quite satisfied, though. She is 85 but still had the reflexes to get her hands in front of her face for every one of the 23 photos her children and grandchildren took of her as she told them she would never use the gifts they brought her so why did they bother.

Pastor Randall Nathan, (Retard), looked at the glaring reflection off the top of his head in the pix on his new digital frame and decided that if they had been around in Job's time, Job's three "friends" would have brought him one for Christmas.

Christmas Disappointments

Tommy Houchins got out of prison yesterday. He was scheduled to be released Dec. 23, so he could be home in Memphjus, the seat of Periwinkle County, for Christmas. The warden, however, "lost" his papers. Tommy is a tough guy, and the warden doesn't like tough guys, especially tough guys who won't spy for him.

Tommy's sister talked her husband into driving to the pen to bring Tommy home. Dwayne doesn't like Tommy, and Tommy doesn't like Dwayne, but they both like Laraine. Of course, Dwayne showed up on Dec. 23, and Tommy wasn't "ready," so naturally Dwayne went home without him. Tommy couldn't blame him for that. No use both of them missing Christmas.

Now he's sitting in a bus station, waiting out a storm, wondering if there will be any persimmon pudding left by the time he gets home. He's also thinking about what the old preacher said, about Christmas never being over because of the disappointments. What was it? The old preacher came to visit him every month. His December visit, they talked about Christmas. The old preacher said his mother-in-law always said, come about supper time on Christmas day, "There's nothing as over as Christmas."

He said he understood how that was true for a woman. Women spent so much time getting gifts, and wrapping them, and planning meals, and cooking them, and getting out the good silver, and polishing it... then suddenly, there was nothing but torn wrappings and turkey bones and dirty dishes. And the disappointment...

That's what keeps Christmas coming back, he said, the disappointments. Everyone has a story about the pony they didn't get. She asked for a doll, and got it, but it was the wrong one. He wanted a basketball but got rubber boots. They asked for world peace and got the Taliban instead.

Halloween doesn't keep coming back. Neither does Easter. Not even Arbor Day. Nobody remembers that they got Snickers bars when they wanted Kit-Kats trick or treating. Nobody complains that they got pink peeps in their Easter basket instead of a chocolate bunny. Nobody wishes they could have planted an oak instead of a maple.

That's why Christmas is never really over, why it keeps coming back, the disappointments with the gifts, just like everybody is always disappointed with what God gives them, especially the Christmas gift, that Jesus. Despite how people talk about him, Jesus didn't change anything. People still die. Kids still get cancer. People lose their jobs and have to live on the streets. You do something nice for someone and they hold it against you. Jesus saves us from our sins they say, so why do we keep on sinning?

We want God to give us good presents, like an end to hunger, and no more pollution, no more kids dying, no more murder and rape and greed and talk radio and computers that go kaput in the night. Instead God gives us a little baby, some little life we have to take care of.

It's the disappointments with the gifts that keeps us coming back for Christmas, seeing if maybe we'll finally get what we want.

Tommy is disappointed, but he's sitting there in that bus station, waiting out the storm, knowing there's nothing in Periwinkle County for him anymore, but there's nothing anyplace either, so he's going home. When he gets there, it will be Christmas.

Nothing Is As Over As Christmas

Claire Nathan thought about her mother today, as she always does on Dec. 26, because this is the day her mother always sighed, and said, "Nothing is as over as Christmas."

CHRISTMAS PANTS

Randall Nathan found his Christmas pants. His wife, Claire, keeps hiding them, but he always finds them. She's never been very good at hiding things, including her disdain for the Christmas pants. "Those were out of style when you got them," she declares. They are red and green plaid. He has worn them every Christmas day for almost forty years.

Claire also keeps threatening to wash them. "You can't wash Christmas pants," he says. "You'll wash out all the memories."

Hope's Promise

Pastor Randall Nathan (Retard), [To understand "Retard," see the post of 12-15-9], and his wife, Claire, drove over to the Christmas concert at Cratchit State U. Their first date was at a Christmas concert when they weere students there. CSU is located in the town, now a small city. of Hope's Promise.

As they drove home, along the river, a light snow falling, the last notes of "Silent Night" still floating in his ears, Randall Nathan thought about the name of the town...

It was back in the early years of the 19th century, when the whole state was pioneering. A farm girl named Hope was promised to Reuel, a boy from a farm on the other side of the river, beyond the town of Winkleblue. Hope's father had said that she could not marry until after the harvest was over. He had no sons, so she had to help with the harvest.

The rains were heavy, so it was a late harvest that year, into December, but it was finally done. Hope and Reuel anxiously awaited the arrival of the Methodist preacher. He rode a wide circuit, just a young man not much older than Reuel, and he was not due in Winkleblue until the day before Christmas. At last, he arrived. Hope's father, however, reneged on his promise. When he knew that the preacher had arrived, he told her she could not wed for another year, until another harvest was done.

There was no bridge across the river, and the rains that had delayed the harvest had swollen what was usually not much more than a big stream into a wide and fast flowing torrent. She knew that Reuel would be at the river with the preacher, trying to find a way across, so she slipped away and ran to the river herself.

She could see Reuel on the other side. She found an old boat and began to row across. The waters were strong, and she wasn't making much headway. Reuel and the preacher grabbed a boat and began to row to her. They met in the middle of the river. Hope knew her father would be coming after her. She insisted that the preacher read them their vows right then and there, before they could be stopped. So there, in the middle of the rushing river, they were married, each one holding fast to the other boat as the preacher gave them their vows.

Then a beaver dam upstream brokke. A quickening wave of muddy water rushed toward them. Hope was still in her boat. She tried to climb across into the boat with Reuel, but the waters hit, and her boat fell apart, and Reuel could not reach her hand. The last thing he heard her say was, "I promise I'll love you forever."

He built a cabin on the bank where they found her body and lived there the rest of his life. He called the place Hope's Promise. Years later, Cratchit State University was established there, when Mitch Cratchit was Governor.

Randall Nathan knows that story is true, for his great-great-grandfather, the Rev. Forrest Nathan, was the preacher in the boat that day. He knows it is true for another reason: it happened at Christmas. The message of Christmas is the promise of Hope, God's word, "I promise I'll love you forever."

The Perils of Recess

4th grader Johnny McDill was too sick to go to school today. His mother thought it must be real. Johnny likes school. As the day wore on, though, Johnny went through the entire book of paper airplane construction he and his grandmother started on the weekend. "Hey, if you're able to make paper airplanes," said his mother, "how come you can't go to school?" "Duh. Recess." "You can't go to school because of recess?" "Of course not. I could sit at my desk for class, but then at recess, I'd play real hard, and then I'd diiiieeee!" he exclaimed, as he fell to the floor with his hand over his heart. His mother was properly chagrined. She had forgotten how strenuous recess can be.

Aunt Mabel

Ellen Palendro teaches poetry at Cratchit State U, 30 miles west of the village of Winkleblue, where she lives on a hill with her husband and a collection of whale tongues. Winkleblue is about 5 miles from Memphjus, the seat of Periwinkle County. It has 13 houses and an antique store and a coffee shop and a general store that advertises "Live Bait & Fine Wine."

For the first day of winter, Ellen is teaching William Stafford, for she considers him a fine poet for winter. She is walking her class through "Aunt Mabel." In it, Stafford records Aunt Mabel saying:

Our Senator talked like war, and Aunt Mabel
said, "He's a brilliant man,
but we didn't elect him that much."

Ellen is trying to get the class to see that the emphasis is on "that," because there are a lot of folks in life we elect or select, but only so far, not that much.

Peach Crisp for Christmas

This morning Claire Nathan caught her husband, Randall, eating cookes for breakfast, along with his diabetes pill. "What are you doing?" she exclaimed. "We don't have any pie," he explained. Anyone else would have gotten a lecture or a whack with a wooden spoon. With him, though, she thought it was cute and couldn't wait to tell her women friends. There is the secret to a happy marriage somewhere in that story.

Claire is famous for her cooking. She finds that the days don't start as early or last as long now that she's past 70, though, so she has to cut down on her cooking. Her Christmas prep "drop" list now includes not only a Yule log but blueberry coffee cake for Christmas brunch. She has decided to make applesauce bread instead. It's easier and takes less time. Besides, her husband and grandchildren will eat anything she puts before them, and she doesn't really care what anyone else thinks.

Except maybe Pastor Patty...

Pastor Patty has this crazy notion that Christmas is a celebration of Jesus' birthday, so gifts should be to Jesus, like giving a poor family a goat through Heifer International, or a toilet for a Habitat home. Claire believes in that sort of giving, and does it, but she also believes that Christmas is for giving everyone she loves anything and everything they might want or need. She loves Pastor Patty, for her generous nature, and for her bulldogged determination to do good, so she wanted to give her a present. What, though, can you give to someone who eschews personal gifts?

Claire remembers too well the gift the congregation gave her and Rev. Nathan the first Christmas after they married. It was a 3D picture of the last supper. When it was lighted,wine sloshed in the glasses, and the eyes of not only Jesus but all the disciples followed her as she went across the room. "Just like men," she would hiss."They need some women in that picture. Who do they think baked that bread and stomped those grapes, anyway?"

For a woman who is a preacher and a wife and a mother, Saturday night supper is both a distraction and an anxiety. So Saturday afternoon, Claire took a loaf of her famous dill bread, and one of her famous shepherd's pies, and a Jell-O salad, and her famous peach crisp to Patty's pasonage. "Here's a gift that won't gather dust," she said. Patty was in her study, preparing Sunday morning's sermon, so her husband and children helped Claire carry her gift into the parsonage kitchen. They seemed especially intrigued by the peach crisp.

When Patty came out of her study, basking in the glow of a sermon finally finished, she caught her husband and kids eating peach crisp. "Why in tarnation are you eating peach crisp before supper time?" she cried. "Mrs. Nathan didn't bring any pie," they said.

Pastor Nathan (Retard) thought about what his wife had done and decided that if he were still preaching, he would say that the proper gift is the gift of your own identity. After all, that was the gift God gave at Christmas. And if you're a famous cook instead of a famous Creator...

Claire Nathan was hanging ornaments on the tree. One was a corn husk angel. [When you live in Periwinkle County, and you pretty much have to go to the church bizarres, {sic,sick} you end up with a lot of things made from corn husks and cobs, and gourds, and pumpkins, and persimmons.] "This angel has a dirty skirt," she said, "but I'm hanging her on the tree anyway, because angels have a lot to do, so it's not surprising that they get a little dirty sometimes."

The Holly Trinity

For Claire Randall, the Holly Trinity is traditions, cookies, and children. so each morning when she wakes up, after she has determined that there is no big lump in the bed beside her, so that she knows her husband has already rolled/fallen out of bed and gone to turn up the thermostat, she lies comfortably between her flannel sheets and decides what she will NOT do that day. She loves Christmas, but she's not as young as she used to be. This morning she decided not to do a yule log. It's tradition, it's baking, it's done with grandchildren, but it's also over. One of the most time-honored Christmas traditions for women is to be exhausted and grouchy by the time the Prince of Peace is born, and she's decided, for once, to break tradition.

Doing Something about the Weather

After the choral concert the other night, Rev. Randall Nathan (Retard), ran into Old Doc Huffmaker, veternarian, who ought to be retired, but hangs around the practice just to make his son, Young Doc Huffmaker, miserable. "I don't know what those idiots in Copenhagen are thinking. Climate change conference, indeed! It's still true: everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it. You can't change the weather."

"You change it everyday," Pastor Nathan said. "What the hell you mean?" said Old Doc. "Every time you turn on your bigass TV, every time you get in that 3 miles per gallon pickup of yours, you change the weather. The folks in Copenhagen are just trying to make the weather livable after all the changes you've made to it."

The next day Ben Bottoms told Pastor Nathan that Old Doc was down at The Whistle and Thistle saying that the old preacher had gone 'round the bend for sure. Pastor Nathan allowed as to how that was why the world was going to hell in a carbon basket, because everybody wants to live by cliche's, like that one about nobody being able to change the weather.

A Team Christmas concert

Volvo River High School had its Christmas concert last night, under the direction of Madame Rousseau. She is an opera singer and the former wife of the Dean of the music school at the university, 30 miles away. When they divorced, she moved to a cabin near Memphjus, the county seat of Periwinkle County. Somehow Katrine Hamlet, the Principal of VRHS, persuaded her to teach music on a provisional certificate. Madame Rousseau gets more sound out of 16 voices than most college choirs. Unfortunately for balance, only 3 of the voices are male.

VRHS is the smallest HS in the state, at 64 students, 29 of them boys. 28 of the boys play on the Class A state championship high school football team. 2 of the chorus boys are also on the football team. Neither Principal Hamlet nor Madame Rousseau dared voice it, but they hoped the team would not go too far in the playoffs, because the football boys could not practice for the chorus concert until football season was over.

The Swedish Autos did go far, however, all the way to the state championship game, and beyond. [The teams are not officially The Swedish Autos, but they have been called that for so long, no one remembers if they are officially named for a color or a big animal or an ethnic group.]

That left Matt Gakstatter as the only male chorus member. Matt is the bass. The football players are tenors. Matt, however, is in a wheelchair. He has been there so long, he cannot stand up at all, even on crutches. Matt has a lovely low voice, but he can't project, and VRHS can't afford a sound system.

The tenors had only one rehearsal, yesterday afternoon before the concert last night. Madame Rousseau said, in her exotic accent, which is sometimes French, sometimes German, "Alright, you two, big shot football players, prove how strong you are, and stand on either side of Matt, and hold him up so that he can project." Neither a QB/CB nor a C/DE is going to admit he can't hold up a boy like Matt, so they did, the whole concert. Matt sang like he had never sung before.

Everyone told him what a terrific singer he is, what a great voice he has. Everyone wants to affirm a kid in a wheelchair. Matt didn't care about that, though. All night long he thought about how Dustin and Adam held him up, about their wavery unrehearsed tenors that probably only he could hear, and he said to himself, "For once, I was on the football team."

(Ret.) means slow

Retired Pastor Randall Nathan noticed that other retired people with titles or ranks put (Ret.) after their names, apparently so that they will not be asked to do in retirement what they did before retirement, such as retired military people being asked to blow things up. So he began to put (Ret.) after his name, so that people would not ask him to do things he did before retirement, such as weddings, or other things that blow up. First grader Remington Watts, named for the painter, not the rifle, asked him if (Ret.) stood for retarded. He thought about it. Retard in music means to slow it down, and that's what he's done in retirement, including his brain. So now he spells it out entirely, The Rev. Dr. Randall Nathan, (Retard).

Little Clara Wembley wondered about Jenny Newland dropping Jake's walker on his head. Didn't she know that holding it over his head that way, that it might fall? She didn't think about it for long, though, because back at Nana Kate's house, Kate's husband, Professor Ben "Seymour" Bottoms, known to Clara as "Big Daddy," to distinguish him from her regular daddy, was playing a new CD he had ordered from iGeezer, "A Merry Geezer Christmas." Clara went home humming Bing Crosby's version of "White Christmas." Her parents were astounded. They had never heard anything like that. They think music started with The Beatles.

Fifteen-year-old Bronwyn Heltzel was humming a different tune. When she found out that her grandparents were going to a concert at Treasure Lake, she asked to go along. To her, a "concert" means rock and roll. At Treasure Lake, it means folk and blue grass. "You told me it was a concert! That so-called music is so lame. Gilly McGill and The Brokearm Mountain Boys? What kind of name is that, anyway? Silent Night on something called a cittern? It's just a pregnant mandolin. Why don't you ever listen to my music? Haven't you ever heard of The Smoking Emus? A concert means some band like The Rabuud Squirrls. Why did you make me go to something like..." That was her litany all the way home.

On the way home from school last week, seven-year-old Remington Watts, strapped into the back seat, began to sing the blues. "I ain't got no woman, I ain't got no bank account, I ain't got no Nintendo DS, but I got me a good mommy, oh, yeah, she take care of me when I ain't got nothin, oh, yeah..." His mother, Rachel, was dumbfounded. When had he ever heard the blues? He sounded like an old black man who had been smoking for 50 years.

Where, indeed, does music come from? James Wilkins, Bronwyn's grandfather, pondered that question. Why do certain songs, or certain genres, suddenly make us feel like we've come home? He wondered about it as he searched the internet for The Smoking Emus. That was at the same time that his granddaughter Bronwyn was stealthily downloading hammered dulcimer tunes to her iPod. And little Clara Wembley's parents began to hum geezer tunes with their two-year-old daughter.

Meanwhile, back at the library, where his mother had dropped him for after-school story time, first-grader Remington Watts had slipped out of the children's section and into the computer room. He wasn't sure where music came from, why the blues had bubbled up out of his soul, but he knows that music has a power unmatched by anything else. He knew where his new Nintendo DS was coming from, for he was sure that even then, his mother was searching through the aisles of Shop-Ko for a Nintendo DS. He began to update his secret blog on the KidsPost site, "Scamming Your Parents for Fun and Profit."

Who was Jesus' nana?

Little Clara Wembley was visiting her "nana," Kate Bates, this week. Kate took her down the block to see the creche set that the Newlands had put up in their front yard. Kate was glad to see that Jenny Newland had taken the scarlet "A" off of Mary's robe. Jenny's husband, Jake, had put it there to, as he said, make a point: "If God doesn't want us to fool around with another man's wife, how come He was doing it?" Clara is two, and Kate didn't want to have to explain that to her.
She had to explain something else, though. Another three inches of snow had fallen, quite a bit of it on the baby Jesus. "That's not right," said Clara. "He'll be cold. Why doesn't someone get that snow off of him? We should tell his nana. She'd do it. Who is his nana? We should go tell her."
Kate, who is an intelligent and highly educated nana, was caught with her mittens off, which, as cold as it was, meant red-handed. She had no idea who Jesus' nana was. She got out her cell phone and dialed retired pastor Randall Nathan. ["Dialing" is what older people call the punching of numbers on current phones.] Rev. Nathan's wife, Claire, answered. Kate explained her dilemma, one nana to another. "Jesus' nana was Anne,"answered Claire, who knows many things.
Kate relayed this information to Clara. "Let's go get her," said Clara. "I think she's sick or something," said Kate, "or she would have done it already. Maybe you and I should just go ahead and do it ourselves." This pleased Clara. She brushed the snow off the baby Jesus, who was just at her height, while Kate took care of his parents, whose heads reached a bit higher. Satisfied, Kate turned to see that the baby Jesus was gone.
Clara had the baby Jesus in her arms and was ringing the Newland's doorbell. Before Kate could climb over the manger and get to her, Jake Newland was at the door. "How come you didn't wipe the snow off the baby Jesus?" Clara demanded. "His nana is sick, so my nana and I had to do it" Then she saw Jake's walker. "Oh, I guess maybe you couldn't..." she said. "That's right," said Jake. "I was just waiting for the right person to come along to wipe the snow off Jesus so everybody could see him. Now I know who the right person is, so you and your nana should come in for hot chocolate. Bring Jesus with you. He can warm up before he has to go back out in the cold."
While they were at the kitchen table with their hot chocolate, Jake said, "Clara, you being the right person and all, I have a question for you. Since God doesn't want us to..."
On the way home, her nana told her it was just an accident that Jenny Newland dropped her husband's walker on his head right then, but Clara thought that seemed a bit odd.

Stone walls do not a prison make

Rev. Randall Nathan was quite pleased to come across the lines "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage," in a poem by Richard Lovelace [1618-1658], "To Althea from Prison." He has always heard those lines quoted, usually by folks who have never been in "stony lonesome," or even in the Periwinkle County jail, but he did not know from whence they came. [He likes to think in terms such as "from whence.] For him, it was a "macaroon unaware."

Periwinkle Chronicles

As you may know, I stopped writing Iron Filings, because I could no longer write about real people. I find it difficult to stop thinking in story form, however, so I am going to try to write about fictional people, the folks of Periwinkle County. [The obvious color names for counties, like Brown and White and Orange, were already taken when Periwinkle County was created.] Also, I sent Iron Filings by email. A blog is less intrusive. You not only don't have to read it, you don't even have to access it. I shall post short snippets about the denizens of PC on an erratic basis. Now I shall log off and see if this has worked.