I realize that this is the middle of summer, but winter comes every year. This essay concerns that colder season.
Keeping Warm?
2016 - When someone
asks, are you keeping warm, it is a conversation opener and no more. As long as the electricity is supplied and
basic general mantainance occurs, we expect to keep warm. Winter can howl. We can take our comfort for granted. All we really have to do is to adjust the
thermostat. It wasn't always that
way.
1966-How do you
heat your home? I remember my father
asking this question and it wasn't at all casual. I suspect it was a sales pitch but it
addressed a very real concern.
Back in the 60's,
my father, a farmer and jack of all trades, sold and installed Kirk
furnaces. These were coal burning
wonders. They had a fan system to force
the warm air into each room through ducting and also, luxury of all luxuries, a
hopper with auger to feed coal into the fire at regular intervals. One lurked in our dirt basement, a glory of
convenience; modern and automated. As a
child, I was proud of us for owning such a marvel. Forced air heating was a
brand new thing and we had it. However,
heating our home wasn't totally hands free yet. The chore of hauling out the
ashes remained as part of the homeowner's week as did the annual trip to buy a
truck load of coal which would be unloaded through a window into the coal bin.
How did people heat
their homes, those that didn't buy a Kirks furnace from my father? I remember
answers that went something like this. A
coal and wood cook stove provided part of the heat while another area of the
house had an oil floor furnace. To light
these, someone told me recently they would drop a piece of burning paper
through the grate. A drip system of
diesel fuel waited. It would spew oily
smoke and eventually warmth.
I recall that my grandmother had a oil-burning
space heater. It sat on a metal clad
base that looked like a giant pot-holder.
The base's purpose was to prevent the floor from catching fire, and the
heater was that hot. We were allowed to
draw near to warm ourselves but were also warned, with stories of bad burns, to keep our distance, and above all, not to
fall against it.
So while the adults
concerned themselves with our safety, I also worried for theirs. Housefires took lives, space heaters just
like my Grandma's were dangerous. Oil
floor furnaces exploded. Chimney fires,
sparks that jumped out and burnt where they landed meant keeping warm was a
serious business.
What lay behind the
concern with homes and heating was the brutal fact - winter, white and
snowfilled and cold, 40 degrees below zero or more, was on the other side of
the wall. And those walls varied greatly
in their construction. There were
drafts, and fingers of snow that came in through the bottom of doors and
through window frames, and drawing near the outside walls meant a marked change
of temperature.
The war against
cold air included 'storm windows' that were put up in the fall and removed in
the spring. Electrical outlets, if your
home featured the 'power' often had frost built up on the central metal screw. And if 'indoor plumbing' hadn't reached your
home, there would be frozen chamber pots under the bed. Burrowed under feather beds and multiple
layers of quilts people still woke to see their breath. Children warmed their clothes under the blankets
first, then leap quickly to where hopefully the cookstove had been fired
up.
It was a bit more
rugged in those days. And I am grateful that heating a home has become easier.
The enemy was, and still is winter, but we are warm. Until we go outside, of course!
