A Walk in the Park with Friends

© 2010 Linda Schneider. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 10/26/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4520-8238-7 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-8239-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-8240-0 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010915072

Printed in the United States of America

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author gives permission to produce this work in any accessible audio, Braille, or electronic format for the use of visually impaired and others prevented from reading printed material.

Contents

Author’s Note

Dedication

The Lost Doll

A Letter From St. Nicholas

Christmas Keep-Backs

Reflections On The Third Trimester

Meditation On Christmas Carols:

Which Creature Would You Rather Be This Easter?

Celebrating The Admiral’s Day

The Short, Sweet Season

Monkey Numbers?

The Star Queen And The Coconut Shell

Beach Bum

Concerning Neighbors And Damage Control

The Catalyst

The Gathering

End Notes

Author’s Note

After the main course, comprised of Slice of Life and A Second Helping, and the desserts, Cream Puffs and Other Goodies, this fourth collection is meant to be the after-dinner walk in the park with friends. It should contain some reflections, special items, AND maybe an ice cream cone en route. I hope that my readers will enjoy these treats, another dozen of new ones. I repeated a story from my first short story collection, so that the sequel will make sense. The new stories include some tying up of loose ends about characters in the other collections. I also repeated A Letter from St. Nicholas in this compilation, which originally appeared in The Ivory Pyramid, my poetry collection. The stories and essays in this collection have friendship as their common theme, including friendships between people and God, among people, and between people and other creatures in God’s universe.

Linda Anne Monica Schneider,

Pentecost, May 23-Assumption, August 15, 2010

Dedication

For Nana

The Lost Doll

Linda Anne Monica Schneider

March 13-14, 2010

It was a flawless, exceptionally mild January day. The azure-blue sky was laced with fleecy, fluffy, white fair-weather clouds. The bright sunshine reflecting off the remaining snow and the mild breeze blowing off the bay were especially welcome after the fierce late December blizzard.

The residents of the small coastal town took advantage of the fine weather, knowing that it might be brief and intense. They were clearing the remains of the three feet of snow left by the storm from sidewalks, curbsides, and driveways. They were hoping and praying that the warmth of the sun would dry off the exposed pavements to avoid nightly refreezes and slick surfaces in the mornings. Despite everyone’s best efforts, some snow patches and icy spots remained, especially in shady places.

Eight-year-old Cindy Carroll also was delighted with the beautiful weather that Saturday morning. She wanted to take advantage of the mild weather and the cleared sidewalks to take her favorite doll, Miss Killdeer, for a ride in her red doll carriage with the pretty blue canopy. Aunt Selma gave her permission to go, provided that she didn’t go farther than three blocks down the street and back to her house near the corner of Walnut and Lynden Streets. Her aunt imagined that the walk with the doll carriage would occupy her niece for an hour or two, which would give her time to do some housekeeping without the girl and her playthings under foot. Cindy would enjoy visiting with the neighbors who were clearing their walkways and showing them her doll and carriage. Her aunt cautioned her niece not to go farther than the intersection of Sycamore and Walnut streets, because the street sloped down a steep hill past that point.

Miss Killdeer was a special doll. She began as an ordinary eighteen-inch tall doll in a box in a craft store, with a stuffed fabric body, vinyl legs and feet, arms and hands, and a head with movable glass brown eyes with lashes and rooted dark hair. Inside the box with her were moccasin-style shoes and socks, and instructions for dressing her in a Native American costume. Mama bought the doll and followed the instructions. She dressed her in a suede leather dress decorated with beads and feathers. She made a headdress with long white feathers for the doll, and platted her long hair into two thick braids. She gave her to Cindy two Christmases ago, when Cindy was seven, and Mama was home on leave from duty as a Marine nurse in Iraq. Cindy named the doll Miss Killdeer, and she cherished her because of the care and effort that Mama put into dressing her so nicely. She especially treasured Miss Killdeer when it turned out that the doll was Mama’s last gift to her.

In preparation for her walk, Cindy tenderly wrapped Miss Killdeer in a soft blue blanket that almost matched the canopy on the doll carriage. She carefully tucked her into the carriage with her head on the little pillow. Upon leaving the house by the front door, she slowly maneuvered the carriage down the steps to the sidewalk. She was relieved to be on level ground and happy to be going for a walk.

She went slowly down the sidewalk, pushing the carriage in front of her. As she passed the clapboard and brick houses, she waved to the neighbors who were out clearing their walkways and driveways. Some of the neighbors who were particular friends of her aunt stopped their work for a few minutes to talk to her. They complimented her on the pretty doll carriage and the cute doll with the detailed costume. On the corner of Walnut and Maple Streets, Mr. Perkins helped her get the doll carriage over the snow pile near the curb, and he warned Cindy to watch out for ice patches.

Between Maple and Elm Streets, Cindy passed some boys who were trying to play a game of dodge ball. She carefully maneuvered the carriage through the snow near the curb to get past them. Fortunately, there was a wheelchair ramp at Walnut and Elm, and she was able to get safely across that street. In the block between Elm and Sycamore, the sidewalk sloped gradually downhill, and Cindy had to hold tightly to the handle of the carriage to keep it from going too fast.

As she approached the corner of Sycamore and Walnut, she noticed Mrs. Holloway sweeping off her front porch and putting sunflower seeds and wild birdseed into her bird feeders. She waved to her, and paused to ask her about the birds coming to her feeder.

I get all kinds, especially when the weather is bad, the old lady told the girl. The funny weather is affecting the birds, too, and some birds are staying around in the winter that ought to go south, like the cardinals and the blue jays. I bet they wish they went south this year, with all this snow!

Maybe we won’t get any more snow now, Cindy said hopefully. It’s such a nice day!

Don’t let the warm wind fool you! Mrs. Holloway retorted. It’s going to get colder in a minute.

Cindy laughed. She began to turn the carriage around to go back toward her house. She was thinking about her conversation with her friend, and she wasn’t paying close attention to the sidewalk. Two of the carriage wheels got stuck in some snow near the curb. When Cindy tried to turn it away from the snow, the carriage began to skid on a little patch of ice. Cindy tried to hold onto the carriage, but she lost her balance and fell onto her knees on the sidewalk. She had to let go of the carriage, which began to roll down the slope into the street.

Mrs. Holloway hurried to help the little girl. Did you hurt yourself? she asked, concerned.

Cindy wanted to say no, but she had skinned her knees very badly. She tried to protest that she was ok. I need to get my dolly! She cried.

We’ll get the dolly later, Mrs. Holloway said. Right now, I’m going to walk you home.

Cindy remembered that Mama always said to be careful not to ask old folks to do things that they might not be able to do, so she did not insist any more about the doll. However, as they began to walk back up the street, she kept glancing back at the carriage. The front wheels were stuck in some snow at the bottom of the wheelchair ramp, and it probably wouldn’t go further out into the street. She didn’t care about the carriage too much, but she desperately wanted her keepsake dolly back with her.

When they reached Maple Street, Mr. Perkins was still outside, clearing away the pile of snow from the corner with his snow blower.

My doll carriage is stuck near the corner of Walnut and Sycamore, she told him. Please pull it onto the sidewalk, so it won’t go into the street.

I’ll get your carriage and bring it back, Mr. Perkins told her. Just as soon as I clear up this mess here.

Come along, dear! Mrs. Holloway insisted. We need to get you home and take care of these knees, before you get blood on your clothes.

Cindy didn’t care about her clothes; she was only thinking about Miss Killdeer. When they reached home, Aunt Selma wasn’t very sympathetic. All she had wanted was a little time to get things done and peace, and now the girl had got hurt. She managed to contain herself long enough to graciously thank Mrs. Holloway for bringing Cindy home.

Thanks for looking after her, Elvira, she told the old lady, But something always happens with kids!

Don’t blame her, Mrs. Holloway said. There’s still enough snow and ice out there to get anybody into trouble. Her poor doll is stuck in a carriage near the corner. Tom Perkins says that he will bring it back later.

I’m sure he will, Aunt Selma said.

Once Mrs. Holloway had left, Aunt Selma hustled Cindy into the bathroom. Get in here! she scolded. I need to wash those knees off with salt water!

She sat Cindy down on the tub and cleaned the knees, peeling away the stockings and throwing the soiled pair into the tub. Cindy cried when the salt water stung, but Aunt Selma ignored her.

Come on, be brave! she said. You’re a big girl, and your Mama was a Marine nurse, for crying out loud!

Cindy didn’t feel like a big girl. I want my dolly! she said, and cried all the louder.

We’ll deal with the dolly later! her aunt retorted. She put big Band-Aids on the skinned knees, and she sent her niece off to her room.

Go play with your other dolls and stay out of trouble! She told her tartly. After lunch, I’ll go see about the carriage and the doll, if Tom Perkins doesn’t bring it back.

Selma burns didn’t intend to be cross and hard-hearted to Cindy, but she was a very angry woman about many things over which she had little control. Like many people with unresolved rage, she misdirected it to those closest to her. She felt very helpless in her present situation. She never understood about dolls. Playing with them always seemed foolish and nonsensical to her. She had been the tomboy, who liked to climb trees, play sports and rough games with the boys, and try to beat them in the math and science classes at school. At least, she had ultimately succeeded academically and had gone off to college and obtained her degree in computer technology. In fact, she was making a living now solving other people’s computer problems and designing security systems to protect against hackers. Her sister, Anita, Cindy’s mother, had been the one who liked the dolls and their fancy outfits and tea services. She had disdained the math and science but excelled in cooking, arts and crafts, and home economics. For a while, the family thought that she wouldn’t make it to college, but she had decided to go after all, to study for a nursing degree. She lasted two years, dating Sam Carroll off and on, and then she left school to get married and start a family. The first baby miscarried. Cindy was the second. Everything seemed fine, with Sam making enough money working on a commercial fishing boat to support the three of them.

Then, the terrorists had struck on 9/11/2001. Idealistic, patriotic Anita decided that she should enlist in the Marines, take advantage of her military career to finish her nursing studies, and serve her country. They decided that it was better for Cindy to stay with Selma while she was away; Sam would live at Selma’s house, too, when he wasn’t away fishing. They would rent out the little house they had bought in Framingham until Anita mustered out of the service.

Selma wanted to help her sister, but she found it hard looking after the child. She didn’t consider herself the motherly type. Anita had finished her nursing studies and spent four years off and on in Iraq. In 2008, she came back on leave at Christmas time, with only one more year to go. All of them were looking forward to her discharge and return to normal, domestic pursuits. Cindy wanted her Mama back full time; Sam missed his wife, and Selma would be glad to go back to having her house and life to herself. Then, in August, they received the telegram that nobody ever wants to get. Anita wouldn’t be coming home, except to a grave in a national cemetery. To Selma, all the military pomp and ceremony seemed to be an empty show! To her, Anita’s bravery and selfless service had been wasted. Damn the politicians and their ideas of defending freedom and helping people who didn’t need or want our help and who couldn’t care less! All she knew was that her sister was gone, and her life was turned upside down. And now her niece was crying her eyes out over a stupid doll! Sure, the kid would miss her mother, but a doll was just a doll, and she had other dolls, didn’t she? It didn’t occur to Selma that the doll had significance as the last tangible contact between the child and her mother.

Cindy picked at the chicken soup and sugar cookies that her aunt served for lunch. The little blond girl with her big, mournful hazel eyes looked so sad and miserable that her aunt relented. Tom Perkins must have been too busy to bring the carriage, or maybe he just forgot. She decided that she would go and get the carriage. Maybe the little girl would cheer up and stop making her feel guilty!

People weren’t the only ones enjoying the unusually mild January day. Eight blocks up the hill in the opposite direction, on the corner of Aspen and Walnut Streets, a law school professor, Nora Simmons, lived in a big stone house with a large, yellow Labrador retriever dog, named Moose. Moose originally had trained to be a guide dog, but he had been rejected by the school that trained him, because he was too playful, stubborn, and energetic. He found a home, in his premature retirement, with Ms. Simmons. He was fond of playing with balls and squeaky toys, and he liked to carry around large stuffed animals. He also had a bad habit of running out of doors if someone opened one and didn’t pay attention. Late that morning, Ms. Simmons went out to get the mail, and Moose saw his chance. He ran out the door past her and bounded down the steps. From past experience, his mistress knew that she couldn’t catch him by running after him, and he had the advantage of four legs in bounding through snow and across unfenced yards. He was well known in the neighborhood, and often someone would find him, read the tag on his collar or the phone number tattooed on his thigh, and contact her. If she didn’t hear from anyone after an hour or so, she would take the car and drive around looking for him. Sometimes he came back on his own, and he usually didn’t go far away.

On this occasion, though, Moose ran farther than usual. He was bored and restless from being cooped up in the house by bad weather. From experience, he knew that running down the sidewalk was a good way to be noticed by neighbors and returned home before he was ready to go back. This time, he ran through the snow that still lay deep in yards and alleys. He managed to avoid notice until he crossed Maple Street. Tom Perkins was still trying to get rid of the pile of snow on the corner. The trouble was that, even with the blower, he was having difficulty figuring out where to put the snow, except to blow it up into his own yard. His property sloped steeply down to the sidewalk, and he was trying to pile the snow up in such a way that it wouldn’t slide back down onto the sidewalk. He watched Moose run by in a blur, and he debated whether to go after him. Moving all that snow was hard work, and he didn’t feel like chasing a bouncy young dog. However, he decided to go inside and call Nora on the telephone, to let her know that he had seen Moose. If the dog didn’t go home on his own, she would have some idea where to look. Once inside his house, he discovered that his cell phone wasn’t sufficiently charged for him to make the call; the Internet was still down as a result of the cable company still making repairs after the storm, and he couldn’t use the landline. Despite his good intentions, preoccupied with his snow removal and reporting the whereabouts of Moose, Tom Perkins completely forgot about the doll carriage.

Moose crossed Maple Street and headed down to Elm. He was enjoying his romp, but he was finally feeling like slowing down. At Elm Street, he actually stopped to look for traffic. He crossed the street, and then he walked down the block toward sycamore. At the corner, he saw the doll carriage.

Knowing how much he liked to carry things, when Nora took him walking, she always steered him away from children’s toys or from baby carriages with real babies, and told him sternly, to leave it. Now, here was a carriage with a doll in it, and nobody was around to tell him no.

Moose walked up to the carriage and stuck his head inside. He sniffed at the doll; this one had leather on it, one of his favorite things. He peeled the blanket away, and then he jumped up on the carriage to get at the doll. His eighty pounds was too much, and he tipped the carriage over on its side in the snow. He nudged the doll out with his nose, and he picked it up by the dress. He shook it a little! It was great fun. He dropped the doll into the snow pile, so that he could roll it around and lick the wonderful leather dress! He pulled on the fringes and played with the feathers.

Moose heard a door open in a nearby house, and he decided he should get away before someone tried to take his prize away from him. Holding the doll around the body in his mouth, he turned and ran back up the street the way he had come. He would take his new toy home and find a place to hide it, like under the bed in the spare room. Besides, the smells of lunchtime cooking coming from houses were making him hungry! As he ran up the street, he passed a lady hurrying down the street in the opposite direction.

The lady that Moose passed was Selma. As she hurried down the street toward Sycamore, she noticed that Tom Perkins was no longer outside his house. She wondered if he had retrieved the carriage after all. When she reached the corner of Walnut and Sycamore, though, she saw the overturned carriage blocking the apron. Eagerly, she turned it upright and looked inside. The precious doll that her niece wanted so much was not inside, and she didn’t see it lying on the ground! For some reason, she felt sad about it, too, but she had no idea what could have happened to it. She looked all around on the sidewalk and in the snow in the nearby yards, but she saw no sign of the doll. Sadly, she turned to go home, wondering how she would break the news to little Cindy.

It was around 1 P.M., and Nora was thinking that she should take the car and go to look for Moose. Then, she saw him running up the street toward home, carrying something in his mouth. She was relieved to see him, but she couldn’t help wondering what in the world he had found this time! She tried to remember what the dog trainers always said about not scolding dogs that came back on their own, but she didn’t exactly feel like rewarding him, either! Once he was safely inside, she retrieved the prize from the dog’s mouth. She was dismayed to find that it was a doll. The doll was intact, but the shaking and rough handling by Moose, and the fall in the snow, had ruined the doll’s pretty dress and headdress beyond repair. Nora could see that much tender loving care and work had gone into making the doll’s intricate costume. The only parts of it that could be salvaged were the moccasin shoes and socks, along with a few of the white feathers from the headdress tangled in the doll’s braided hair.

Oh, dear! Nora said. Some little girl is going to be very sad about losing this! I must put signs out on trees and telephone poles, to find out who lost it. Meanwhile, I’ll knit a new dress for her. It won’t be like the leather one with the beads and feathers, but at least the poor thing will be dressed! I think I’ll use pretty green yarn.

After lunch, Nora made some big posters and signs about the lost doll, and she put them up in the neighborhood in a six-block radius, but she didn’t get down as far as Lynden Street, because she had no idea how far away Moose was when he found the doll.

For some reason that she didn’t understand, Selma found it hard to tell Cindy that her doll was gone. After all, a doll was only a doll. Still, she was beginning to realize, however vaguely, that the doll meant more to the little girl than just any ordinary doll. For her part, Cindy understood on some level that Miss Killdeer was only a doll, a plaything. However, she missed her mother terribly, and the doll was very closely associated in her mind with that last cherished Christmas when Mama was home. Now, she not only longed for her mother, but she also longed for her favorite pal and bed companion. The two losses merged together into a big, dull ache inside her.

When Daddy came home that evening from doing maintenance work on the fishing boat, he tried to console her. He promised to fix the carriage and to make it as good as new. She could take her other dolls outside in it when the weather was nice. Privately, he and Selma discussed whether it made sense to find a similar doll in the local craft store at the mall and make it up like the lost doll, but Sam doubted whether they could make it close enough in appearance to the original doll to fool Cindy. Selma agreed. Her sister, Anita, was the one with arts and crafts talents, not Selma. Selma couldn’t imagine doing all of the patient sewing and gluing necessary to make that Indian costume that the original doll had worn.

Meanwhile, two weeks passed. Cindy tried to be brave about the loss of Mama and Miss Killdeer. She prayed for Mama every night, and she prayed that God would send Miss Killdeer back to her somehow. Mama always said that God answered prayers, but Cindy remembered a sermon in church in which a priest said that sometimes God’s answer to prayers was no, instead of yes. Sometimes, the little girl cried herself quietly to sleep, remembering Mama and her lost dolly. She found it hard to concentrate on her studies in school, and she was afraid to try to make new friends. The only subject that she really enjoyed was geography, because it encouraged her to escape in her imagination to strange, different, and interesting places.

No one had responded to the signs about the lost doll. Nora made knitted panties and began knitting a new dress for the doll. She thought that maybe she should put signs up farther away, and she went out in early February to do it. She actually put up a sign at Walnut and Cedar, a block above Aunt Selma’s house. The next day, a second blizzard struck, dumping another two feet of snow on the area, with high winds. Most of Nora’s signs were torn up or blown away.

During the six days it took to dig out from the after effects of the blizzard, while the law school classes were suspended, Nora made steady progress on the dress. It was almost finished. When residents finally began to venture out after the blizzard, Nora took the knitting and the doll with her in her duffel bag when she went to keep a doctor’s appointment and run some errands. The doctor was delayed in seeing her by an emergency. During the hour that she sat in the waiting room, Nora completed the dress and finished binding it off. She put it on the doll to make sure that it fit properly. The deep green color really looked nice with the doll’s dark complexion, hair, and eyes! She was tying the crocheted belt to secure the dress around the doll’s waist when she was finally called into the doctor’s office. She hurriedly pushed the doll into her duffel bag and put it under the chair. In her haste, she neglected to zip the bag shut. The doll was protruding part of the way out of the bag. When she retrieved the bag after her appointment, she failed to notice that the doll had fallen out of the bag and was lying under the chair. By the time she finished her various errands and returned home and noticed that the doll wasn’t in her bag any more, she couldn’t be sure where she might have dropped it. Of course, she called the doctor’s office when it opened the next day, but nobody remembered seeing the doll. The receptionist looked in the waiting room, but nobody saw it or remembered it. Nora asked the security people in the building to check the lost and found box in the basement. They said that they would check, but they didn’t seem very optimistic about finding anything worthwhile in the box.

Around here, ma’am, one of the guards told her. If something is left in the building after hours, it kind of disappears, if you get my meaning.

Somebody else was aware that lost and found items were not taken seriously. Doug Owens worked as a maintenance man in the office building. The previous evening, he was in the doctor’s office to replace a socket in the overhead light fixture. He spied the doll in the green dress under one of the chairs in the waiting room. He hesitated, wondering what to do. He knew that a lost and found box was in the basement of the building, but nobody kept an inventory of what was placed in the box or claimed later. From his experience working in the building, he knew that items went into the box and disappeared soon thereafter. From