Thursday, Oct. 06, 2005 - 6:56 p.m.

Long-ago winters

Reading about the expected rise in winter heating costs and how that will affect the poor has me looking back through the years. The years I start remembering are after my mamma was sick. The first bad one was when I was fifteen.

We had always been poor because of Daddy's drinking. There was a short time when I was under 8 that we lived normally but I think that was because Mamma worked in a grocery store. After that time, the money she made picking grapes each fall is what bought the necessary school clothes for us. There were no other luxuries. Once she was mentally ill, even necessities became luxuries.

Food wasn't usually a problem; potatoes were always plentiful and we ate lots of them, but I remember some cold winters in my teen years. One year Daddy was working for a farmer and we moved our 27 foot trailer with no plumbing out to his backyard. The wooden outhouse was no big deal, but the shed right next to the trailer had possibilities for me. It was about 10 by 14, had a slat door that pulled shut with a rope and was just made of 1 by 4's nailed over the frame, but it became my room. Summer was great. An old metal bedframe with mattress was found somewhere by the farmer, and a light was strung on an extension cord to dangle down over the bed. Some kind of arrangement of boxes with an old mirror propped up against the wall was my desk-dressing table, and I was thrilled. Alone at last! I hadn't had a room or bed of my own since I was a little girl.

But winter started to write another story. While the Columbia Basin is not noted for record cold spells, below freezing days are common most of the winter and that little shed was cold. Mamma had an electric heating pad she gave me, and I had lots of covers, but reading in bed was pretty uncomfortable. I usually wore a heavy sweater and kept tucking my fingers under the blanket to get them warm. Gloves with the fingers cut out of them would have been ideal, but there were no extra gloves to cut the fingers out of. I knew I would have been warm if I had moved into the trailer for the winter, but I wanted my own space.

Two years later we were living in a trailer court in town, Mamma was in a mental institution, Daddy was usually out of work in the winter or drinking up his wages, and I was trying to finish school. Mamma was no longer around to make sure there was some heating oil to fill the little stove in the trailer or make sure the propane tank got filled before Daddy spent all the money, and that trailer got cold. I can remember the blankets freezing to the wall next to the broken half couch I slept on. I was warm under the covers as I recall, but I would have to pull the covers away from the frozen wall, and blanket fibers would cling to the frost-covered wall.

I've never been cold like that again, except for the time we all came home late at night from a Christmas trip to find the furnace oil tank had run dry. The kids were teens, and we all piled into our big bed, along with the dog, and slept cozily til morning when we could order the truck to come and fill the tank.

I've heard it said that allowing the dog to sleep in the bed is very economical since they put out alot of heat, but there is the dog food expense so it would probably be better to do without that money-saver, unless one already had the dog. I never heat the bedroom very much, but just put plastic bottles filled with hot, hot water in to warm up the bed at first. But we do have way too much square footage that is open, and that has to be kept warmer than I like. This house is heated by electricity ing the ceiling upstairs, and by baseboard heaters down here. Ceiling heat is ok for younger adults who may be up on their feet more, but older folk who spend a lot of time sitting in recliners are too far away from the heat source. It is times like what is approaching when I wish we had some sort of little trashburner. There are a couple out in the shop, but I don't know where one could be put upstairs or down in this house. Maybe for a few days in a serious emergency.

I was thinking of cutting off the fingers of some old gloves to wear when I am at the computer down here for the winter. This winter is going to be hard for those on limited incomes, and I am not going to run the heater while I am on the computer. I have started wearing a sweater, socks, and fuzzy slippers with a blanket near to wrap around my legs when necessary.

It's intriguing to think about what lies ahead, but You are in charge of our lives, and You have never failed us yet. Common sense comes into play, and Your Arms are underneath.

EE's devotional

newAutumn Leaves

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