Afternoons With Mr. Linden
Uploaded by diana06 on Dec 08, 2004
I will never forget that cold December day, December 20th to be exact. My parents decided to move because of their new jobs, I remember thinking big deal. Christmas is about being with friends and family, muttering to myself, not this year. Were my parents punishing me for a crime that I did not commit? The worst part about living on Droopy-Willow Drive was that there were no kids in my neighborhood. This could not be happening to me; I was surrounded by “old people.” I knew that I would be bored for the rest of my life and I was only eleven and still had a lot of years ahead of me. Christmas came and Mom thought it would be a nice idea to bake cookies for our new neighbors. I gave her this look of astonishment and told her that she was trying to kill them. “Old people cannot have sugar they are diabetic, they will die!” Then I thought that if the old people died then maybe some kids would move in, I told her “let’s do it.” Then my mother said, “Good point,” so we made sugar-free cookies. They were so cute we made snowmen and stars. The cookies were creamy cream they really did not taste sugar free and the big hint that they were not was the fact that they were full of sprinkles like Christmas rain of green and red. My job was to pass out the tins. Each time I knocked the door, an old couple invited me in. What was the whole squeezing my checks and telling me I was cute? When I would leave each house, I would open a tin of cookies wrapped in a big red bow and take a big whiff-to get the old people smell out. The cookies smelled like ginger spice coming right out of the oven. The last tin of cookies went to the last on the house on the corner.
As I stood in front of the house, the word whimsical came to mind. The house had wood siding, the color was unknown. I believe the original color was a light brown but somehow or another there were patches of greens and blues all over with chips of paint knocked off. ...