 It shouldn't be all that difficult. The cookie thing wasn't all that
hard to figure out.
The cookie thing, we concluded, began with old Jasper
Blankenship. He came down from his cabin at the diggin's and brought
with him an entire half pillowcase of cookies. He had found the
recipe in one of those 30-year-old magazines he has up there, and
since the snow was too deep to do anything else, he baked cookies.
Jasper walked into the Soup 'R Market and handed a cookie to
Annette. "We don't often get to say how much we appreciate each
other, Annette," the old man said, "so here ... have a cookie."
She thanked him and talked about it for the rest of the day.
Jasper found Doc walking toward the Mule Barn and his daily cup
of coffee and handed him a cookie, too.
"Doc ... the way you took care of that ... little problem of mine
... well, I want you to know how much I appreciate it. Here, have a
cookie."
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column]
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Before the day was over and Jasper headed back to the diggin's,
half the valley had been cookied, and the other half wished they
had. Carla Martinez had been cookied and decided to carry on the
tradition, so she whipped up a batch of biscochitos and began
passing them out, along with compliments.
Herb Collins asked Maizie to make a batch of chocolate chip
cookies, his particular favorite, and handed them out, along with
compliments. Mickey Baker had store-bought cookies to hand out two
nights later at the ticket booth at The Strand, where a Randolph
Scott Western was playing for the first time in 60 years. Each
cookie came with a compliment, too. This seems to be the most
important element of Jasper's new valley tradition.
Cookies and compliments. Not a bad way to say, "I love you."
[Text from file received from Slim Randles]
Brought to you by "The Long Dark, An Alaska
Winter's Tale." Available at
www.slimrandles.com. |
