Christmas at the Open Arms Motel
By Hank Nuwer - Near Darke
As our columnist enjoys the Christmas lights in Union City’s Harter Park, his thoughts are of an unexpected Silent Night 41 years ago.
Photo by Malgorzata Wroblewska-Nuwer
As a freelance writer in 1979, I accompanied a photographer to interview sheepherders out west. These hardy workers stayed with the flock six weeks, visited by camp tenders who brought food, radio batteries, mail, and a single bottle of Early Times to them.
On Christmas Day I had an appointment to interview a female herder as she kept watch over her sheep in northwest Wyoming. But something inside her snapped in isolation. She quit to return home to West Virginia.