It\u2019s atavistic, I think. Most of us like to cozy up to a fireplace, stare into the flickering flames, dream and drift or think of nothing at all. Others find inspiration in writing by a fire, snug in a blanket, laptop at the ready.<\/p>\n
I was raised without central heat. In a bitterly cold house on the Texas\/Oklahoma border, the welcome warmth of a hot stove was our greatest comfort. Those stoves were closed cast iron heaters, fueled by chopped wood and vented via a tin chimney with a damper to regulate the heat.<\/p>\n
In 1938, when we moved farther south to our present day farm in West Texas, we graduated to butane gas heaters and could watch the flames again.<\/p>\n
I married in 1956. My husband and I bought a small house in Pasadena without central heat. It was back to gas heaters and I was thrilled. Bath room, bedrooms, living room and kitchen, all had gas stoves of some kind.<\/p>\n
Fast forward twelve years. We bought the big house, still in Pasadena, and now we had central heat. I could never get warm and had one of our employees set up my best gas heater in the new garage. Stosh blew up when he came home. I was ensconced before that heater reading a book.<\/p>\n
\u201cBarb,\u201d he yelled. \u201cYou\u2019ve got 4000 square feet of house around you, and here you sit in the garage.\u201d<\/p>\n
He must be turning over in his grave, because I now have beautiful gas wall heaters installed in the den and here in my office\/bedroom. Yes, of course I still use the central heat, but take no comfort in it.<\/p>\n
I stand in from of a wall heater if I want instant warmth. I glance over at the fire in my office and find joy in more ways than one. Guests love to warm themselves at my gas heaters.<\/p>\n
We have propane heaters all over the old farm house. In the yard, we have a fire pit. At night we sit out there and grill supper, listen to the coyotes and watch stars fall.<\/p>\n
Our fascination with fire goes back to our ancestors. It\u2019s a folk memory. The fires they built in front of their caves gave them light and protected them from wild animals, kept them warm and cooked their food.<\/p>\n
Some of us tend to take our fires for granted. Not me. Excuse me while I go sit in front of my heater. I\u2019ve got stories to plot and axes to grind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s atavistic, I think. Most of us like to cozy up to a fireplace, stare into the flickering flames, dream and drift or think of nothing at all. Others find inspiration in writing by a fire, snug in a blanket, laptop at the ready. I was raised without central heat. In a bitterly cold house […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bkreeves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bkreeves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bkreeves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bkreeves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bkreeves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bkreeves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143,"href":"https:\/\/www.bkreeves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bkreeves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bkreeves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bkreeves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}