Wood That it Were...

It was cold here today. I lit a fire in the fireplace and sat back with my morning coffee contemplating the day to come. What would I do? Check the computer and write to some people with whom I hope to do business? Straighten up my shop? Run errands? Make lunch and tea for my ailing Missus? Probably some combination of things yet to be determined.

But before too long I would have to get more firewood. I have a pile in the yard, near the porch and some of the pieces are too long for the fireplace. I'd have to cut them up.

Easy enough to do. Get the sawhorses, plug in the saw (I don't have a chain saw. I used to...a good one...a Stihl... but it went the way of many things...broken and not worth repairing and not enough extra cash to get another...same old story)and away we go.

So I set about cutting the longer pieces into shorter ones, easier to haul and use.

And I have plenty of kindling. It's almost all from the trees in the yard. Little branches that fell off when the wind blew. Good and dry and perfect to start a fire. And I have a ton of old local newspapers. They come in the mail, unsolicited and unsubscribed. I never read them. I'm a New York Times kind of guy. International stuff is what interests me. And of course the crossword. Can't live without the crossword. Especially Sunday and always in pen. And never with a dictionary.

So I'm set. Newspaper, kindling and some good logs. And a comfortable rocking chair in front of a roaring fire.

On a cold winter morning. The same chair my father would sit in every evening after work with his pipe and brandy and book. I remember him reading "The Last of the Plantagenets." He loved history and I loved him.

And his rocking chair and fireplace. He used a Cape Cod lighter though. It was much easier than the rigamarole of kindling, etc.

I have reached that part of my life now. Here I am. Older and in my slippers in front of the fire.

Life is grand.