As you all know by now, my friend, Leslie Hardy, and I are working feverishly to put together a brand new celebration for the children of Lititz. It’s no small undertaking and the details to each segment are mind-boggling. We work on it every day, without exception, even it’s simply an email here and there. But here’s what I want to share with you—I feel Leslie and I are experiencing a miracle!

Yes, I said, “a miracle.” Miracles don’t have to be huge, loud, front-page stories; miracles, especially the smaller ones, happen every day—if you pay attention.

“God works in mysterious ways,” it’s been said. If you’ve read my column in the Lititz Record in years past, you’ll know that I am one who listens to Him and DOES pay attention. And while in between miracles He throws out some pretty harsh “tests,” He has given me a life filled with wonders.

When I realized that our children here in Lititz would be left without a Santa this year, I knew parents would be hard-pressed to have to explain to their children why he wouldn’t be visiting. Thankfully, we will always have our "Christmas in the Park" celebration where we all gather to light the town's Christmas tree and sing carols (a beautiful, beautiful night--DON'T miss it!) and we'll always have Supper with Santa at the Rec Center but the visits with Santa in the caboose will not be held--and that's something many children look forward to; I prayed that someone would come up with something new, something fun, to take the kids' minds off that missing tradition. And of course, He answered me, as He always does when I really, truly need Him to.

As I drifted off to sleep one night, I though about the upcoming Second Friday and how I’d be working, what I’d do, all rambling “before-drifting-off-to-sleep” thoughts. Then it happened; why not do a “Second Friday” type of Christmas event for the kids but have it during the day, all day? Of course!

That’s how it began.

After presenting the idea (and a few details) to the Kiwanis and to a group of town representatives from the service organizations, the Park Board, the VFW, schools, and many other reps, my idea was received most positively. My dream was that everyone, everywhere in Lititz, would open their hearts and offer to help. I would NOT, I decided, ask for money; I wanted people to actually FEEL the TRUE Christmas spirit. As I sat in that meeting, hands were raised by every representative at that long table; “My club will take care of Santa’s mailbox,” one said quickly. “We’ll take care of the carriage rides,” another offered. And so it went, all around until I thought my heart would burst with happiness. My miracle was unfolding.

It was going to work. But now, where, how, to coordinate it all?

Leslie Hardy, a fellow Kiwanian, was my first thought. It was she, who, immediately after joining our club, offered to take on anything Christmas-related. I had found my partner! After explaining my plan to her, we got busy contacting those people who had already spoken up and made a list of others we’d need to contact immediately. Leslie drew up a spreadsheet from which we continue to work, changing it frequently so we know exactly where we stand with everything.

After the article in the Lititz Record came out, calls started coming in. “How can I help? What can I do?” With every email, every call, the miracle continues to grow. People really ARE filled with the Christmas spirit of giving.

Lititz Springs Park Board has reached out to us, offering the train station as our hub of activities for our event and has offered to have Santa’s Mailbox located right by the train station so the little ones can find it easily and the Lititz Lions Club has taken on the huge task of monitoring it. The Park Board has also, most generously, offered to let us put a live nativity in the park. The Kiwanis Club of the Lititz Area offered to help us monetarily in the circumstances where we simply HAD no choice and are also supporting us every step of the way, always acting as our “cheerleaders.” An anonymous benefactor gave us 100 Lititz Shopping Dollars to give as a prize for the “Name that Event” contest that we held and Café Chocolate, besides being an actual participant in the event, has offered a wonderful prize for our “Guess How Many” contest. Venture Lititz is backing us all the way in several aspects, which is greatly appreciated. Bill Dussinger of Pennylane Graphics has voluntarily created our logo, which is absolutely beautiful! A lovely lady I met several years ago, Melissa Landis, emailed us and offered her extraordinary organizational skills, which we jumped at; she is now our Director of Entertainment at our Linden Hall location. Yesterday I met with another new member of our tiny team, Sam Travers, who will be our Master of Ceremonies at Linden Hall AND will be creating a Christmas gingerbread house contest that will be located in the Lititz Museum. The list of people helping us AND wanting TO help goes on and on now.

Miracles DO come in all shapes and sizes…

My Solider

Have you ever "connected" with someone you've just met? I mean, you meet someone and you feel like you've known him or her before, perhaps in some other lifetime? A feeling that gnaws at the back of your mind...or your heart...

A few months ago a young man dressed in military garb showed up at my window over at Wilbur. I slid the glass over to the left and looked up at him. There he stood, smiling from ear to ear. And what I smile, too--right from the heart. It was right then and there we connected--that smile did it. He had recently returned from deployment, back safe and sound (as sound as one can be after a tour like that one). During our first meeting I thanked him for his service to our country, as I do with any person that is obviously military or wears a cap indicating such. I told him that I had grown up military and therefore anyone serving our country or who has served, is a hero to me.

"Now, how may I help you?" I asked as he leaned closer to the window. "Well, m'am," he answered. "I'd like some fudge, please." We talked in between deciding which flavors he wanted and with every sentence I just became more enamored. THIS was the son I always dreamed of having--he was just perfect; handsome, tall, sturdy, well-spoken and clearly quite intelligent. But most of all, he was just adorable.

Scott (I just found out his name a month ago) returns to this area every few months and never forgets to stop in say hi. I don't mind telling you that I look forward to his visits. The last time he showed up he had brought along his friends, introducing them to me and giving them a little tour of Wilbur. It was how he introduced me to them that struck me; he had a certain tone in his voice that made me feel like a million bucks.

Today as I returned from lunch one of my coworkers whispered in my ear, "Hey, there's a good-looking soldier looking for you! I think he's out in the store. You'd better catch him." "Scott!!!" I told her, "my soldier!" and took off.

There he was, scanning through a copy of my book. "Hey, you should buy that book, it's really good," I kidded with him, smiling. "Hi! Hey, I didn't know you did this!" "Ah, yeah, well..." Then we slipped into conversation immediately, talking quickly, knowing that we both had little time.
But today--well, today I nervously took a little more time than I should have, hoping to learn a little more about him. And I did. In fact, I learned that he is in the Intelligence section of our military, just like my dad was -- I knew I liked this kid. He told me about his dad, his mom, a little snipet of his childhood, and even shared his vision of his future. I wished I could have heard more but I knew I HAD to get back to work. At that moment a customer walked up to him and begin an inquisition about the uniform Scott had on. I touched his arm and told him I had to get back to work and to stop back to see me before he left.

A few moments later he appeared at my window again, that cute grin on his face. "Gotta get my pound of fudge before I go," he told me. I loaded the gooey stuff into a box and handed it to him. "I hope you and your dad can make it back here for the Chocolate Walk," I said. "Me, too," he admitted. "We'll do our best!" With that, he turned and was gone. I stood there, shaking my head and smiling. What a sweet guy... I hope I get a chance to meet his dad, to tell him what a fine son he has raised.

Erma and Me - How it all began...

Ten years ago I moved to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, with my husband, daughter, baby granddaughter, and Max, a 120-pound German Shepard (who has since passed on, taking a piece of my heart with him). It wasn't a move I was looking forward to; moving from right outside Philly to the middle of what seemed then like nowhere, well, it certainly wasn't the highlight of my life at that point. The move was due to my husband's job situation; the company he worked for, for over 20 years, shut down and now we had to start over. Fortunately, Darryl, my dear husband, was offered employment in a little town called Lititz. "What's a 'Lititz?'" I asked him the day that he told me the good news. "Remember visiting Lancaster?" "Yes..." I told him. "Well, it's sorta around there." Images of cows and horses and buggies popped into my mind's eye. "Okay..." So began a new chapter in our lives.

To this day I can remember our very first drive down Main Street in Lititz; it was the day I fell in love with a little village that one day would become my adopted hometown.

If Hollywood ever wanted the quintessential "American small town," Lititz would fill the bill. Clean, tree-lined streets, tiny shops in historic buildings, churches at every bend, alleys here and there that have little boutiques and colorful flowers adorning windows or curbs. Then there's the park, a place to lose yourself in quiet meditation or to let the kids run til they drop. A pretzel factory, a chocolate factory, a wolf sanctuary, the Moravian Sanctuary...the list goes on. To me, I had driven right into a Pollyanna movie.

The point of me telling you all that is to make you understand why I wanted to live IN Lititz. Desperately. Unfortunately, when we first arrived there was no way we could find a house IN Lititz that met our needs. Remember, we had to have a house that could comfortably house not just my husband and me, but our daughter, her baby, and a huge dog. Bottom line: Lititz did not offer what we needed for what we could pay. Our search continued. Just a footstep over the imaginary line from Lititz, we finally found a house that could be reworked into just what we wanted. We bought it.

NOTE: I know this seems like a long explanation but for those of you who have never read any of my columns--which I wrote weekly for ten years--I wanted to properly introduce myself AND explain about the "Erma" part of the blog title. Here goes...

We moved into a nice little rancher just past the thriving metropolis of Elm (Elm is a cluster of homes, one "sorta-kinda" intersection but not one traffic light) and began our new lives together.

Darryl worked full-time. Kelly (my daughter) worked full-time. I stayed home and took care of Deven, my granddaughter. This worked out fine for, oh, about a week, at which time I began to feel unGodly bored. During the time Deven slept or was at playgroup, there I was, doing nothing to keep my brain cells healthy. And trust me, Peg Bundy I am not; I can only watch TV for a brief period without getting itchy to do something else and you can only eat so many bon-bons. Ten years ago the computer was just being introduced to me so I had limited understanding of just what it could do so that was not very entertaining to me (boy THAT has changed!). So I read...and read...and read. One day I found an article about Erma Bombeck. She became my idol. Her writing style was, well, not really a "style" at all, just Erma writing the way she spoke. Incredible! The long and short of it is that it was Erma who gave me the courage to do what I did next.

As I sat waiting for Deven to wake up from a nap, I paged through the Lititz Record Express. Having just been introduced, as I said, to the computer, I noticed that nothing in the paper referenced anything in any way about web sites that might be associated with their articles. Hmmm......... I had always wanted to write a children's book (which I still haven't done--but I did have a book on Lititz published) and had tried to put one together but never carried through, thinking that, "What publisher would be interested in someone who has absolutely NO experience and NO education past high school?" So, I dropped it. But paging through the newspaper, something occurred to me. Erma wrote as she spoke and it worked for her--big time--why couldn't it work for me, too?

Without thinking it through, I wrote a few paragraphs about the fear of flying and included a web site that I had found that was very informative. I spell-checked it and called it "done." Next, I noticed that Rick Reitz, the editor of the Lititz Record at that time, had an email address listed, so I emailed my little "Fear of Flying" piece to him. "You don't have anything that relates to computers," I wrote, "so I'd like to write a weekly column that does; a different subject each week. You don't have to pay me, I just want some experience writing." Just 15 minutes later he responded, "I'm interested. It's too short, however; write some more and send it back to me." Astonished, I sat there with wide eyes and my mouth hanging open. What had I just done???

The rest is, as they say, history. A few weeks into writing the new column I was called into Rick's office and was hired to do not only my column but to do feature stories and photography as well. I enjoyed those years and LOVED the people I worked with; we all became a great big editorial family. About three years ago our "family" was torn apart when the big bosses came in and told us that the Lititz Record Express Newspaper would be moving to Ephrata the next day. That's right--the next day! There were tears. Lots of tears. Life was never the same after that. I quit the paper in protest. Yup, I quit. I deeply mourned the passing of the paper.

Weeks after that decision I realized that while I still didn't want to do feature stories for them anymore, I DID miss doing my In Sites column. I had, by that point, developed a fairly decent following of faithful readers and I found that I missed them very much. I wrote as Erma wrote; like I was talking to a friend--and people liked it. So I called and asked if I could reinstate myself as a columnist since I could write it from home. They agreed. I have done that since then -- until now. I turned in my resignation last week.

I am hoping that my faithful readers will find this blog and continue to share my life with me. Pass the word, will you?