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Jack Atkinson
I knew several of those houses my father referred to. Life began for me in an apartment of Eula Wrens in Garfield. It included a bedroom roughly formed from a back porch and a kitchen smaller than a small bathroom. My mother used the little stove. My high chair was placed in the doorway and she fed me pancakes. Next, at the end of Railroad Avenue my father bought small WWII barraks from Fort Gordon. A sort of pre-mobile home. It seems to have been covered with beaver board inside. I do not remember the heat source, but I feel sure it was space heaters. We came to know them well when we moved into Marie Bazemore Johnson's house. It was large with tall ceilings and no insulation. Cold floors, ice busted galvanize pipes and a space heater in each room provided my father with his prejudice against old houses. So in 1959 he and mother constructed a modern all electric house in Twin City, now the home of Leah and Phillip Rheberg and their two children. This house has a central heating and air-conditioning system. We kids were never allowed to touch the thermostat,. We received a brass medallion (which could be mounted next to the door bell) which we never did install. Even today we linger with our ancient notions of logs burning in a fireplace. That all electric 1959 house had not even a fake fireplace. The Marie Johnson house had 4. The Lanier house where I live today has 5 fireplaces for a 1475 square foot house. You can tell I spend most of my spare time chopping and stacking my firewood. Since I do not trust the nice old brick work of the chimneys, none is used. My experience with steam heating came at Emory in 1966. I had a one o'clock course on sociological theory. After far too little sleep the night before, a larger than necessary lunch, all I needed to go to sleep was a boring subject and a monotone professor. I had all the ingredients necessary for a snooze fest. Dr. Alvin Boskoff wrote the book and thus read from it for the class with those clanking radiators hissing as his background chorus. I slept through most of it I am sure. The title phrase comes from a World War One song about 1915, Keep the Home-Fires Burning. The refrain says: Keep the Home-fires burning. While your hearts are yearning Though your lads are far away They dream of Home: There's a silver lining Through the Dark clouds shinning. Turn the dark cloud inside out, Till the boys come Home. The title phrase is given the following definition in the Free Dictionary. Keep the home fires burning to keep our home pleasant and in good order while people who usually live with you are away, especially at war. Many of these young soldiers never came home. They did not die in battle but with Spanish influenza. The song for me gave the opportunity to think over various home heating systems. Each system has its own characteristics: wood or coal has particulate matter in the air and on every thing. Burning coal has an odor. Propane has an added odor helping to detect leaks. Jimmy Carter had the idea of cutting down thermostats and wearing a sweater. Oh well, it is back to the chopping block for me. I don't like that wet green firewood so I had better get out there and cut more and stack it in the shed. One never knows how long the home fires will keep burning.--Jack Atkinson is our regular guest columnist and a resident of Garfield.
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