American Elephants

My second story window looks South for something over 20 blocks. I’m on the side of a hill, with a main East-West thoroughfare at the bottom of the hill to the North. The hill on the other side of the valley I look down upon is always smoky these days, I assume because people are having fires in their fireplaces, nice on a chilly winter night. No firetrucks down on the main street at the bottom of the hill, which pretty much eliminates someone’s house on fire. So what’s left would seem to be people with fires in their fireplaces. Dunno if elsewhere most homes come with fireplaces but here they do. I cannot remember being in a home here that does not have a fireplace. Some have more than one. My house has two, one in the main floor living room, another in the basement recreation room, both of which get used regularly. My friend’s houses are much the same arrangement. Fireplace fires are for coziness, comfort, that sort of thing, because everybody does have central heating for ordinary daily living.

Growing up in the mountains of Idaho, There was no central heating. We had a major woodshed to feed several fireplaces. Idaho Power had not yet reached our area, so filling up the 2 story woodshed was a major summer job, and chopping wood to fill up the backporch woodbox a daily task.The woodbox was about 4 feet by 6 feet and about 5 feet deep. I guess. If you are doing all your cooking and heating for a two story house, that’s a lot of chopping, but just an ordinary daily chore. Having grown up with chopping and filling big woodboxes, just an ordinary part of daily living.