Kickass remembers grandmas

Kickass, the doorstop dog, says the keeper is happy the holiday music is pretty much over and he does not remember hearing “Grandma got run over by a reindeer……” this year, which may speak to excessive political correctness, a trend that could easily get out of control. The keeper’s grandmothers would have laughed at the crazy lyrics, and probably had some caustic rejoinder about reindeer likely to get their antlers knocked off.

While it may seem incongruous for someone as old as the keeper to even have grandmothers, he had two wonderful ones: Bessie Helgeland and Emily Stokes, both farm wives most of their lives, and such wonderful company for a curious grandson that the memories of them stays unbelievably vivid; milk and cookies at their tables with appropriate conversation between a grandkid and a grandmother, visits to their gardens, an occasional sharp warning about doing something stupid, and an aura of unmitigated love that surrounded them like pillow clouds.

When a great grandfather like the keeper still misses his grandmothers it means that, in a way, those grandmothers will be around forever despite any reindeer risk.