Dear Reader

Dear Reader Column - December 3, 2021

Dear Reader,

My phone started screeching and a message flashed, "Tornado warning go to shelter. Take shelter immediately!!"

My husband and I live in a 1925 home and the safest place to take shelter from a tornado is in the hall closet--our linen closet. There are only five closets in our home, and they all seem to be designed for a single person who doesn't have many clothes. But our water heater does fit in one, an air conditioner in another, the closet in the family room/office holds extra canned goods,
wrapping paper and a copy machine (The old bulky kind that we really should replace, but we hardly ever use it.) And the remaining two closets; one my husband uses for his clothes (he's a jeans and T-shirt kind of guy so he doesn't need much room) and finally there's the linen closet. It's more like a catch-all closet. It holds a floor scrubbing machine, an overflow of canned goods, dry cat food (we have five cats), and our suitcases.

A label on one of the suitcases reads: 'hatchet hurricane/tornado.' A hatchet? My husband figures if the house falls down on us we can chip away at the wood until we see daylight. There's a change of clothes for each of us, which come to think of it, I better try those clothes on to see if they still fit. They've been in that suitcase for a few years now. Oh yes, and among other emergency items, he's included an irritating whistle that would encourage any passers-by to get us out first if they wanted to keep their sanity. (Stop blowing that whistle!!)

Even though it's close quarters in our linen/tornado closet, it is a peaceful place to wait until we get the "all clear!"

I've always dreamed of opening the linen closet door, and seeing the towels all folded in the same direction; bath towels, hand towels, washcloths, and our sheets each in a nice, orderly stack. So since we were going to be in the closet for a while, I told my husband, "Scooch over a bit dear and give me some more room, it's time to organize this closet, and I need room to fold."

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

Dear Reader Column - December 2, 2021

Dear Reader,

Every year I look forward to reading the Write a DearReader Contest entries, and this year didn't disappoint. The quality of writing was outstanding. Today's Honorable Mention piece was written by Jackie Smith.

Thanks Jackie for sharing your story with us.

Helping Hands

The doorbell rang. My husband opened the door to a group of 5 teenagers from our church's youth group. He had signed us up for their "Helping Hands" fundraising drive. The plan was that they would come to people's homes and help them with chores and projects. One of the key projects was the putting up and taking down of outdoor Christmas lights. This was one project that hubby was very glad to sign up for. It was probably his least favourite project and every year I would nag him for weeks before he put the lights up.

He gave the teenagers a hearty welcome before going down to the basement to bring up a large box full of several strings of Christmas lights. He then went into the garage and took out his two ladders. One was a stand-alone and the other was an extension ladder. The plan was that they would decorate the 30' tree in our front yard.

About this time, I had to leave to run several errands around town: the library, the post office, the grocery store. I was gone for about 2 hours and as I turned the car onto our street and drove up to our house, I was fully expecting to find our tree beautifully decorated and the teenagers long gone.

This however, was not what I saw. There in our front yard were a bunch of teenagers, all looking up into the high regions of the tree while two of them held on to one of the ladders. I let my eyes follow their gaze up the tree and what did I see but my husband--perched on the top of the ladder and reaching up to get a string of lights to the highest branches.

When he was finished he came down, paid the teenagers, and they left to go to their next "client." At this point I could no longer hold in my laughter. "What on earth were you doing up that tree?" I asked him, "I thought they had come to do the lights for you." He then told me that it appears that they were all too nervous to go up on the ladders to get the lights high up on the tree. When he came out to check them they had hung all the lights no higher than the first few branches of the tree. It was at this point that he decided to show them what it was that he wanted, and he ended up doing the job all by himself.

The next spring we had expected the same kids to return and take down the Christmas lights but of course they never showed up. We left those lights up in the tree for the next six years until all of the colours had completely faded and all the bulbs were clear, and many of them had blown out.

Even now, years later, we still enjoy telling about and laughing at the story of the youth putting up our Christmas lights.

-- Jackie Smith
Honorable Mention
2021 Write a DearReader Contest

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Happy Holidays,

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

Dear Reader Column - December 1, 2021

Dear Reader,

Two of my grandchildren, Bailey (26 years old), and 15-year-old Paul, were in charge of making two pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving dessert this year. The plan was Grandma would make the dough for the crusts early Wednesday morning, put them in the fridge and Bailey and Paul would roll the crusts in the afternoon and mix up the pie filling. I had full confidence in the two of them, because they both love to bake, and they'd made pumpkin pies with me many times before. Relaxing in a lounge chair outdoors, I was thinking, 'Isn't this great, the kids are old enough to make the dessert and I don't have to worry about anything,' but then I heard, "Grandma, could you come here?" It was Paul calling out from the kitchen, and it sounded like a 'pie 9-1-1.'

"Grandma, this filling looks strange. Don't you think it looks a little thin? We doubled the recipe, that wouldn't make a difference, would it?"

I assured Paul that doubling the pumpkin filling recipe wouldn't make any difference, unless you didn't scrape all of the pumpkin out of the cans. Upon inspection, there was a 1/4 cup of the pumpkin left behind, in each of them. So I scraped the cans clean and Paul mixed up the filling again, and I went back outside to relax.

Pretty soon I heard, "Grandma, could you come here for a minute?"

"The pies have been baking for a while, but something doesn't look right," Paul said.

Yep, when I looked into the oven I agreed, something was terribly, terribly wrong. After reviewing the steps with the grandkids, not completely scraping the pumpkin out of the cans, wasn't the only problem. The pies should bake for 15 minutes at one temperature, and then be reduced to another. Not only was the temperature wrong, 9-year-old Hadley had decided it would be a cute idea to sprinkle (actually, 'dump' cinnamon on top of one of the pies), and then nobody heard the kitchen timer, because Uncle John was teaching the kids how to play poker.

I kept nursing the pies, watching the oven carefully, but soon I realized there was no hope and I called "time of death: 2:27 p.m.”

So Grandma came to the rescue. Later that evening I made pie crust, rolled the dough and baked two tasty pumpkin pies.

The grandkids are great bakers (when they're not distracted), but it's nice to know Grandma is still needed once in a while.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com