JANUARY PLEASANTRIES MEAN KEEPING PROMISES

About the middle of January I was sitting under the hair dryer doing a little personal bookkeeping. Soon, in the process of writing the date several times, it became clear to me that it was the 15th of January.

Something started stirring in my mind. Soon it descended into nagging. The last income tax installment ran across the screen of my mind. "I've paid that," I said, almost audibly. The next possibility on the brain wave was books due at the library. "I took them back yesterday," I said to myself.

The hair dryer droned on. I wished I were home to look at calendar notations. Someone came into the salon with a sack which I soon saw contained a sandwich. Food! The word pushed the right remembrance button in my head.

Last summer, while sun drying apples, I had promised myself to make fried dried apple pies on the 15th of January. I had projected in my mind that it would be a cold, snowbound day I would make cozy and comfortable by frying a pie or two and eating one or two while watching the birds at the feeder and the wildlife making tracks in the back yard.

It wasn't snowy nor dreary looking at all on the 15th. Actually it was a sunny day and no rabbits or squirrels frolicked about. But a promise is a promise even if it is to myself. I took the dried apples from the freezer, little rusty colored shriveled slices, to put them on to cook so as to revive them.

The telephone rang. It was a friend asking how my pies were coming along. I was startled for a moment, until she said, "I read your columns." I remembered then that I had made my plans known in writing. To think that someone else had remembered sent a glow over me as cozy and comfortable as I had planned the occasion to be.

I made my pie dough, cut it into circles, spooned onto half the circle two heaping spoonfuls of the cooked, cinnamon and butter tinged apples. I flipped over the other half circle of the dough to make a half moon shape, fork-tined (new verb) the moistened edges and into the deep hot oil they went. Not long. When brown, they drained on several layers of paper towels, but even that step in the process would not please weight watchers.

I tried to take some to my telephone friend while they were tastefully warm, but she had disappeared from reach of the telephone, in fact disappeared from town as I shortly did too, but not before pulling a chair up to a favorite window with a pie in one hand and mug of Java in the other. It was so good to reminisce about how I had dried the apples, how Mama and Grandma had done it before me, how good they were to eat, in the form of fried pies, on a cold winter day arriving home from school. The kitchen would smell of cinnamon and wood smoke and an aura of love and contentment was almost tangible.

My disappearance from town took me 80 miles north to visit with a sister. After catching up on all the latest family news which is much since the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren add many new branches to the family tree, she came out with a tray of dried orange, banana, kiwi and apple slices. I assumed she had bought them and I launched into my tale of how I'd dried apples the old-fashioned way. "I dried these," she said, in a dry manner.

"You dried these? How?"

"I got a new food dehydrator for Christmas."

There was a stretch of silence while we nibbled at the dehydrated goodies in a childish manner. Finally I said, "You think I care?"

She had followed my line of thinking and answered appropriately, "No. I just didn't have a good place to spread them in the sun. The kids had heard me talking about dried apple pies and thought I needed a dehydrator for Christmas."

Later, back home, after a deep snow delay, I took a couple of frozen pies to my friend who had remembered. I guess there is some point to this. If you make promises, even to yourself, keep them. They may provide pleasant snatches of time later.

RE~JOICE!