Winter is coming to Alabama! Tonight the temperature is supposed to get down to about 30 or 40°, which is quite cool for my taste, considering the nights during this trip have been about 60 degrees. I have a nice fire going on this evening to beat back the cold that’s coming later this evening.
Anytime I sit in front of a fire like this and put in a nice thick log, I’m reminded of growing up both in the rural South and a slightly larger city. In both places, we had wood-burning stoves, and the thing to do in the evening would be to sit around the stove and talk. We had T.V. but there was no heat in that room. Sometimes, we’d wrap sweet potatoes in aluminum foil and stick them in the front of the stove amid the coal to cook, and we’d eat them sitting around the woodburning stove. It’s always been nice when you sit there and feel the heat from the stove. In those days there wasn’t a lot to do, that was pretty much our entertainment. We sit around and keep ourselves warm, and talk about different things. Fortunately, my bed was in the same room that the wood-burning stove was so I’d have to go to bed and most everybody would be up sitting around talking and I drift off to sleep, listening to them and talk about whatever was going on. A lot of times my brothers would be there and there would be brothers who have come home for the holidays. These older brothers would have moved to states north and west of Alabama. They’d often come home for the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year holidays.
They’d sit there talking to some of their friends and of course, since our house didn’t have very many rooms, the room with the wood-burning stove would be the place where they would sit and talk and I’d drift off to sleep, listening to the talk about the old days, the new days, what they were getting into, how their lives were in the different cities they lived and moved to. It’s always to sit in front of the fire, stay warm, and reminisce about the old days. It’s even better when it’s raining and you can sit in front of the fire, stay warm, and listen to The Rain Drops on the tin roof.
Nothing like a nice fire!
