Return of the Gingerbread Woman

She almost didn’t make it, that gingerbread woman ornament I wrote about hanging in my kitchen window every Christmas. Working on a tough story about family dysfunction and pain the first half of the month, I almost didn’t make it to Christmas myself, dragging my tired carcass between desk and cash register each day, shoulders aching and spirit bedraggled.
But my customers at the market saved her from spending Christmas in a box, and friends rescued my spirit. It’s been two years since this paper published my piece on the gingerbread woman, but I have customers who still ask about her. It seems they’re tickled at knowing my true identity as both a closet gingerbread woman and the writer of this column. Thank you, customers, for your affection. Thank you, paper, for giving me a place to come out into the open.
A neighbor stopped me in SaveMart the week before Christmas, and after questioning my shopping loyalties, expressed appreciation for this column. Looking for the right words for what he likes about it, he finally said “You’re so open.” It’s been hard to get there, I guarantee, but without the interest you all keep expressing, it never would have happened. Thank you, neighbors, for being there and speaking to me all these years despite my yardkeeping habits.
A friend called last Wednesday after reading about the election of our new mayor, Dr. Ramona Padilla.  “What a triumph,” she said, knowing Lindsay’s long history of managing city politics from inside a small circle, congratulating me for accomplishing something here after 20 years of trying. It wouldn’t have happened if there hadn’t been a core group of Lindsay residents who were activated by their outrage over the blatant misuses of power and became willing to stand up and say so, and then step up to the plate of candidacy. Thank you, all you residents of Lindsay who knew it was time for a change and did something.
It also wouldn’t have happened without this newspaper. The Porterville Recorder played a part in breaking the most volatile news, but Reggie Ellis and the Sun-Gazette kept the coverage coming blow by blow as we worked toward a new day, despite resistance and impediments from city hall.  Many people seem to think a weekly can’t cover the news as well as a daily paper, and that’s true for immediate things like memorial services and traffic accidents. But the depth of coverage of ongoing issues like the county general plan, re-routing Highway 65, maintenance of the Friant-Kern Canal and Yokohl Ranch development, plus the local activities in each of our little towns, is actually enhanced in a weekly. This is really the only paper now thoroughly covering the things that matter most to us in this thermal belt where crops still provide the foundation of our economies.
So the gingerbread woman is giving a few subscriptions during these 12 days of Christmas - in support of this paper, in support of this region, in support of us all being more connected to each other. That’s what Christmas is all about, after all:  the miracle of the birth reminding us that we’re all part of each other in His eyes. Let us all reach out and support each other as the community we truly are in the coming year.
- Trudy Wischemann is a woman writer and homemaker who is not going to get any baking done this year. You can send her your gingerbread woman sightings - P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247.
- This column is not a news article but the opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of The Foothills Sun-Gazette newspaper.