Old Hermann Visits

Friday, January 19, 2007

It was cold enough that morning at 6:30, to make Collette choke. Deep blues and oranges glazed the skies as she hurried over to the mailbox to see if anything interesting had come. Nothing that day.

For some reason that morning, Collette was reminded of the older visits to Hermann. Almost every autumn, for awhile, Collette went to the dime store with Grandma, Mom, and the kids while in Hermann for the day. On one of the top shelves, there was always a row of little dolls in thin plastic cases – dolls of the world – Netherlands, China, Ireland… And Collette would always pick one out and the doll would become her most precious possession. But even after taking care of them for over those years, Collette didn’t know what happened to them – they might have still been in the basement at the house, somewhere in her old cabinet with some other little dolls that she had collected over the years, or in her forgotten boxes of special things which had been lost over the years.

But then came one year, when the dime store didn’t sell the dolls anymore, and so Collette began to get, instead, on their lovely autumn visits – a great bag of Runts, her favorite candy at the time. She would make these bags last as long as possible.

Meanwhile, that morning, Collette wondered vaguely to herself if some fascinating place like NASA would hire Dad for his next contract. Dad loved the space sciences…

Judah took a break for lunch during the day and returned shortly later with a sandwich, and to announce that two to five inches of snow were possibly on their way that weekend. Collette was pleased to hear it. After all, what were Januarys for, but snow?

Mom, Frances, and Linnea came through later in the day to fold the bulletins. And Frances was once again thrilled with permission from Mom to run across the street and retrieve the mail for Collette, who could not as easily jog between traffic.

Frances and Linnea had also been intent on taking home with them the bag of shredded paper scraps from the shredder in the copy room, hoping to use it for fire starter in the wood burning stove. But Mom put her foot down, saying that the scraps would go everywhere. Frances reluctantly placed the bag back on the trash pile.

And Collette spend the rest of the afternoon, copying packets from the Book of Church Order, recording attendance, and taking care of the usual. Fridays were best when they were moderately busy.

Meanwhile, fuel prices were lower than they had been in years – $2.05 a gallon. That was lower than Collette could recall.

Come evening, OLeif headed over to the St. Charles Coffee House, where Magnus would also make an appearance, to hear Jo-Jo play guitar. And Joe spun off to hear Flint River at the Chocolate Cafe. Rose remained at home with the family over pizza and the second season of Star Trek, while Carrie spent another night at The Columns. And Collette decided to take it easy and stay at home for the evening, with the hopes of OLeif remembering to bring back a cinnamon roll to split later that night.