Chester Chatter: Long winters spent indoors

By Ruthie Douglas
©2021 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Because the house I grew up in in Springfield was so small — four rooms for a family of five — we had to share our space. Come a cold winter day when my sister Marie and I could not play outside, so winter meant a lot of time spent indoors finding our own play space.

That space often times was our bed, where played with our paper dolls. We dressed them up with cutout paper dresses, hats, purses and shoes. We made up our own stories as we went along: We were shopping at Macy’s in New York City or going to a ballgame at Fenway Park in Boston.

We used pages out of a book of wallpaper samples to create more dresses. And we also drew up our own wardrobe designs. Under the bed, we kept our paper dolls in shoe boxes.

We played card games like Slap Jack and Old Maid, as well as board games. Our favorite pastime was to take a pail and pick up icicles from outside to churn our homemade ice cream inside.

Sometimes my mother would make us popcorn balls for a treat. Still winter seemed to go by so slow.

We couldn’t wait for the robins to return in the spring.

Scene and heard

This past weekend, Vermonters celebrated Martin Luther King’s birthday. The first holiday certainly came as a surprise to us working at Raspberries and Tyme in the early 1980s. We were inundated by out-of-town visitors up for a long weekend of skiing.

Our Chester Road Crew have certainly done a great job working on our roads during this winter. Thank you!

Sunday was comedic actress Betty White‘s birthday. The perennial sex symbol turned 99.

The Girl Scouts are getting ready to sell their cookies. Check this link on Feb. 1.

That big bush outside my window tipped over to the ground under the heavy wet snow, blocking my view of the outside world.  As gatekeeper of my street, it was imperative that I had my daughter Jeanie shake snow off of it so that I can now see out.