Snapshots and Footnotes: A Collection of essays, thoughts and words to bring peace and calm and sweet memory

By Cheryl Ranchino Trench

Cheryl Trench is a national treasure tucked within the pages of a small town paper. Her near half century of musings and missives are witty, insightful, and informative. "Snapshots and Footnotes" promises to be a delectable treat for regular, as well as first-time, readers. -Gordon Pruett, Publisher, Crossfire Press

I've been reading Cheryl's column since the mid-1970s and I've had the privilege of being her editor off and on over the past 30-plus years. Her work has helped me learn how to connect a writer's pen to a reader's heart. "Snapshots and Footnotes" not only contains some of her best writing through the years, it will be a reminder of the best in all of us. -Bill Swinford, Swinford Publications

There are few communities that have the fortune to have a writer in their midst who captures not only the history but the meaning of being in her community. Cheryl Trench is an insightful writer whose subjects center on people in her native southern Illinois, and also the spirit that they have.

Each column embraces the energy of the people about whom she writes. This collection should make every reader seek a voice that expresses the meaning of their own communities. -James Ballowe, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Bradley University

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781684561988

Book preview

January

January Dawn.

Like a good book that one has just begun, January lies full of suspense and uncharted highways. The dawn is sometimes best in the first month of the year.

The house creaks with pleasure. They lay sleeping deep in comforters, dreaming dreams they will not remember. The night light glimmers in the long hall like a summer firefly. Why is it I wake instantly at some unnamed hour filled with thoughts of who knows what? I cannot burrow deep into covers and feign sleep that will not come. I have tried that and served only to wake the others. Instead, I slip down the hall, put the kettle on, and look out into a world sprinkled with an occasional street lamp.

The dog makes no motion, and he, too, yawns, watches me sleepily, and slips back to some world that claims mind and beast for suspended hours. Only the cat of undisciplined nature joins me in my silent voyage through house and home when dawn has yet to break.

The tea pot hisses. I pour golden honey into an old china cup, dip the bag, and begin the morning ritual. There is time to come for buttered toast and creamy oatmeal. I think the mind is free at such an hour, unencumbered by the business of the day. The radio alarm has yet to break the stillness.

I have a favorite old blue robe to putter through the darkness. I pull it close, take the cup, and find the chair close to a window that looks into grayness and shadow.

I like to sip the tea, stare and think, remember what has gone before, plan the day ahead, and forgive my own mistakes. Some call it meditation; others call it prayer. I call it one of life’s small pleasures.

The cat is my friend. He sits silently and watches. He looks into nameless worlds and harbors thoughts I can only imagine. For those who lie abed, there are no early-morning moments, no time for brains to mesh. Perhaps they think late at night, stare into smoldering fires of hickory logs, and find the same peace.

For me, the dawn is a new beginning, and January is a time of crystal thoughts. (January 1984)

MAGIC. When the weather grows cold, a winter sun shines its brightest. The nighttime sky is, unequivocally breathtaking with majestically shimmering stars. I know I could touch the stars if my arms were just a little bit longer. (1997)

FAMILY. In my childhood home, mother would not answer the New Year’s door until a man knocked. A male knocking and entering was a good-luck omen. Earlier on New Year’s Eve, eggnog was served in frosty crystal cups. My father’s job kept him away on New Year’s Eve, before he left, the eggnog, with fresh cream and eggs, was stirred in a large punch bowl with a shot of bourbon added. He made it home a few minutes before the clock struck midnight with hugs and kisses for his four children and our mother.

He brought us hats and horns. We watched as he swirled her around the living room to music (probably Guy Lombardo on the television). Esther and Comp waltzing in the midnight house is a magical memory. You knew they were still lovers. We paraded to the front porch to hear neighbors beating on pans and an occasional shotgun blast in the night sky. We finally made our sleepy way to our beds to dreams of a New Year ahead. (1993)

WINTER MEMORY. My parents, Esther and Angelo Comp Ranchino, second-generation Italians, celebrated their last wedding anniversary together, January 14, 1973. They were married forty-five years. She died in December of that year. She was sixty-five. The day was cold and snowy when they were married by a justice of the peace in the Williamson County Court House. She wore a navy-blue flapper dress embossed with jet beads, and her hair was newly bobbed. My father wore a pin-stripe suit. The simple silver band he placed on her finger was never taken off and is buried with her.

They danced far into the night, in a small house that would be their home on North 20th Street in Herrin, Illinois, till their death. She told whimsical stories of her wedding day of the tall gentleman who became her husband and our father. She told us she fell in love with him when he ice-skated into her heart on a small pond the year before. It was a love story, sure enough, an exciting match between a quiet intellectual and a flamboyant, creative soul. When days of January grow frigid, and frozen nights bring starlight and moonshine gleaming on window panes, I see them dancing, even now, on moonbeams in the sky. (1999)

A Wish. May the winter be an easy one with warm suppers and good books at the end of the day and a spring filled with forest walks and meadows