childhood – seeing god naked

aunt sis’ dinky cookies

December 27, 2021December 23, 2025 Jim KempsterLeave a comment

I spent this afternoon conjuring my mother Aurelia Kempster’s memory, once again, as I whipped up a batch of her crisp little Christmas cookies. Each step in the making brought visions of her. It wasn’t just her handwriting in the photo of her original recipe that my sister texted to me. I could also see that diminutive woman counting 20 tablespoons of Spry, scooping the measuring spoons back and forth quickly as if she were forming quenelles, and tapping them into the mixing bowl. Rolling the dough into little balls and gently pressing a baby spoon of colored sprinkles into a small divot on top.

Mom’s cookies were never the flashy show stoppers on the cookie table, but their simple flavors dominated by nutmeg are Christmas to me. Some of my cousins (who, unable to pronounce Aurelia, called her “Aunt Sis”), referred to her cookies with a wink as “Aunt Sis’ Dinky Cookies” because of their size (and hers).

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aurelia’s fruitcake

December 25, 2020December 23, 2025 Jim Kempster1 Comment

Aurelia’s Homemade Fruitcake

There’s magic in making a recipe that you haven’t tasted in more than 40 years, from a beloved baker who hasn’t been around to guide you through a recipe for a quarter century. It’s like finding seeds in an archeological dig and testing to see if they’ll grow.

That’s how it was making my Mom’s fruitcake this year during the COVID-19 holiday lockdown. Mom passed away in 1995, and this was the first time I’d tried making it myself. The recipe came by way of my sisters, with measurements like “a package of” that I had to guess at just how big a package Mom had used. I adjusted the recipe below with the way I measured the ingredients.

Growing up, I never knew that people didn’t like fruitcake, because I loved my mom’s. Aurelia Kempster made this moist, spicy cake with juicy fruit and nuts throughout. It always made the house smell of great holiday spices, and was a favorite dessert for me and my siblings.

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my trip with burt reynolds

September 8, 2018December 23, 2025 Jim Kempster1 Comment

Burt Reynolds in a still image from the movie Deliverance.

I fell in love with Burt Reynolds in 1972 on a CYO field trip.

An eighth grader at the time, I was too young to wonder why the Catholic Youth Organization of St. Catherine’s Church in Kansas City had included among their schedule of mixers and amusement park field trips, a few outings to the local theater for first-run films like Deliverance and Cabaret.

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reading my skin

August 5, 2015May 5, 2018 Jim KempsterLeave a comment

redheads
know better now
to guard against
the dangerous sun,

but our skin
tells cavalier stories
of childhoods
cycling through
burn,
peel,
freckle,
repeat…

scars learned-from
can be badges
of endurance
and resilience,

and freckles,
like the stars,
gorgeous remnants
of playing
with fire.

howdy valentine…i wish i could quit you

February 11, 2015May 4, 2018 Jim KempsterLeave a comment

Hi There, Pardner! I wish I could quit you.

Valentine’s Day was always troubling for me as a gay grade schooler.

I was expected to share giggly little messages of love with my classmates—that is, of course, girl classmates.

The messages were corny puns and all about the boy-meets-girl romances of the 1950s and ’60s.

It was indeed a confusing exercise in futility.

I have wondered what it would have been like to hand a valentine to a boy I had liked back then, or even now in this brave new world where children are supported by loving parents who encourage them to express their feelings.

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