I grew up in a cold
house. It was an old farmhouse that had been built before
insulation was common. I slept in a room on the second
floor, above the kitchen. There was an ancient oil-burning
furnace in the basement. It croaked and groaned its life
away and occasionally produced a little heat. This bit of
warmth was supposed to find me at the other end of our house
and magically appear for my comfort. When the nights were
cold as they tended to be during Minnesota winters, the
warmth gave up its search for me much too easily.
My
room became like the inside of a refrigerator. The inside of
the windows became frosty. When I needed a glimpse of the
outside world, I would breathe on my iced bedroom window
until a hole melted through. I learned that with every
breath, there is hope. The Bible says, "Do not be anxious
about anything." It is good advice, but I worried about
hypothermia.
I
expect that I would have frozen to death at an early age had
it not been for the life-saving quilt. The quilt was one
made out of rags by my grandmother. It was a large quilt,
long enough to cover my lengthy frame. I am half-English,
half-Swedish, half-Welsh and half-German - that's why I am
so tall. Many children had a security blanket while they
were growing up. I had a security quilt. The quilt was one
of life's shock absorbers. The quilt made my bed feel
welcome on a cold night. The quilt not only enveloped me
with warmth; it covered me with love.
The
quilt weighed about 327 pounds and was ugly as sin, but I
didn't care. My room may have been frigid, but I was as warm
as a bug in a rug under that quilt. It was so nice under
that quilt that I hated to vacate the position. When morning
came, my rear end discovered a way to maintain a firm grip
on the bed sheet. The quilt was a gift that gave so much. It
was true that the weight caused me some problems. I needed
help getting out from under it in the morning. A bumper jack
would have been a great help in extricating me. I couldn't
imagine the hours that went into the creation of the quilt,
but I knew the hours of warmth it brought me. It was much
more than a quilt. It was love.
The Weather Radio
My wife, The Queen B, is a
weather junkie. She has a Weather Channel on her back.
I
spend a lot of time on the road and I love to walk, so I
spend a lot of time at the mercy of the elements. I probably
do not pay as much attention to the weather forecasts as I
should. First, I don't have a lot of faith in the accuracy
of such prognostications. Second, I figure that I always get
the kind of weather that I deserve.
My
wife, on the other hand, is unable to get enough weather.
She looks at the weather reports in the newspaper the way
she used to look at me. She looks at them the way she looks
at chocolate. She listens to them on the radio and then
checks them on the computer. For one of those gift-giving
occasions, I bought my wife a weather radio. It seemed like
the perfect gift for a weather weenie. It was like giving
heroin to a drug addict.
The
radio features a robotic voice that gives the current
conditions and the forecasts over and over again. It also
has an alarm that goes off in case of severe weather. The
alarm is annoying and loud and wakes me almost as quickly as
the sounds the cat makes right before it throws up. The
Queen B loves the weather radio. It keeps her informed and
she believes that an informed person is a survivor.
Whenever The Queen B hears that severe weather might be
headed our way, she
grabs
my faithful canine companion, Towhee, and heads for the
safety of their hidey-hole in a corner of the basement of
our rural home. There they remain until the all clear signal
is given. Where am I while The Queen B is in the basement
teaching our dog how to pray? I am upstairs looking out the
windows, of course. I can listen to the weather radio
anytime. It's not every day that a man gets to see real
weather.
?ŠAl Batt 2003
Hartland, MN
SnoEowl @ aol.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blessings to you.
Bob Johnston
Minneapolis
Starfish @ Ripplemaker.com
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