Of course reindeer can fly. A bird taught them.
From Alfred at Christmas, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
Snow all morning, the heavy wet kind that bends the hemlock, and a boy in a red coat stood under me arguing with his sister about whether the sleigh business was physically possible. He had worked out the arithmetic of hooves and air and was winning. I thought about telling him that for years I was on his side, that I used to watch the geese go over in October and feel sure flight was a thing you were issued at birth or never. Then I remembered the summer I spent shoving a fledgling off the fence rail in my neighbor's yard, four days of it, until the morning she went up without being shoved. Of course reindeer can fly. A bird taught them. The sister had no arithmetic at all and was winning anyway.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
