Wood Smoke
Ok so one of the benefits of Beverly Living is that during the cold days of fall through spring one can smell wood smoke almost ever evening. Now this isn't like in the country where if you have a couple acres of land, some tree lines and the resulting dead wood to split every year, you can have a hefty supply of wood set aside for burning. In Beverly, a wood burning fireplace is more a display of wealth than functional heating. People spend a fortune buying what the seller laughingly calls a cord of wood but might more accurately be called a couple split logs (bark on of course it aint natural if it is machine cut and cleaned lumber)held together with tape and clear plastic (so you can see the bark).
We don't have that kind of money. Even if we had the bucks to burn, I don't think we would go that route. Not that we are above the rampant consumerism of the act, just having to set up the fire and clean out the fireplace and get the chimney swept would be to much like a chore rather than a pleasant eccentricity.
I do, however, profoundly enjoy the smell of wood smoke on a brisk evening. It takes me right back to memories of camping. We never had a lot of money for vacations when I was growing up because the folks felt that things like getting their children a good education in Catholic schools and feeding us and paying off mom's nursing school were more important. So we went camping. A cooler of food, a couple of tents, five sleeping bags, a propane grill, a propane lamp, a bag of clothes each and we loaded into the tiny car to spend a few days down state or in Michigan. When we got a little older (and my parents bought a van) we were allowed to invite a friend to join us for the trip. Their parents were always willing to be minus one of their many children for a couple days or a week. (Remember we attended Catholic schools. Very few of our friends were from single child families. Three was usually par).
Every time we went camping the first thing we would do was set up the tents while it was still light. The we went and got wood for the evenings fire. Every night there was a fire. Every night there were hot dogs to roast on sticks. Sometimes there were smores (not every night). There were songs and stories and of course just poking sticks in the fire. We always had a good time at the fire. Sometime we would wrap potatoes in tin foil and throw them on the coals when we went to bed and then in the morning they would be baked and we couple through em in the frying pan with a some onions and butter and make hash browns for our eggs. (Sometimes the raccoons would get the potatoes before we woke up and we would laugh and be somewhat disappointed).
During the school year we would go camping with the boy scout troop at least once a month. Again it was tents first and then wood for a fire, but a lot more wood. Thirty boys worth of wood to make a huge bonfire to start and then a good sized fire once it burned down to last the adults all night. The adults took shifts staying awake just in case a boy got up or some weirdo was out wandering the woods. So the wood smoke was ever present throughout the weekend trips. We would cook with it, entertain near it and just sit in its warmth and light in the dark of night. (No one had to go to bed at any time, but everyone was expected to get up in the morning. That usually kept us tired enough to go to bed at a reasonable hour).
Those trips were important for the boys because it was a break from the rigid school year structure. The trips were important for the adults too. It was an excuse to relax. They didn't party and relax. We never had drinkers. At worst they smoked in front of the children a real no,no in today's scouting world but perfectly accpetable back in the day. Many enjoyed the excuse to not work an extra day or spend a weekend running around getting things done that they couldn't do during the work week. Often their spouses were happy with them for relieving them of the burden of the children for a couple days. They sat around a fire and drank coffee and enjoyed teaching their children about nature and other scouting skills and because it was a shared burden it wasn't a particularly onerous one.
So while I anxiously await the warmer days so that I might get out and walk the neighborhod again, I still enjoy the cool air and the wood smoke and the memories it brings.
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We don't have that kind of money. Even if we had the bucks to burn, I don't think we would go that route. Not that we are above the rampant consumerism of the act, just having to set up the fire and clean out the fireplace and get the chimney swept would be to much like a chore rather than a pleasant eccentricity.
I do, however, profoundly enjoy the smell of wood smoke on a brisk evening. It takes me right back to memories of camping. We never had a lot of money for vacations when I was growing up because the folks felt that things like getting their children a good education in Catholic schools and feeding us and paying off mom's nursing school were more important. So we went camping. A cooler of food, a couple of tents, five sleeping bags, a propane grill, a propane lamp, a bag of clothes each and we loaded into the tiny car to spend a few days down state or in Michigan. When we got a little older (and my parents bought a van) we were allowed to invite a friend to join us for the trip. Their parents were always willing to be minus one of their many children for a couple days or a week. (Remember we attended Catholic schools. Very few of our friends were from single child families. Three was usually par).
Every time we went camping the first thing we would do was set up the tents while it was still light. The we went and got wood for the evenings fire. Every night there was a fire. Every night there were hot dogs to roast on sticks. Sometimes there were smores (not every night). There were songs and stories and of course just poking sticks in the fire. We always had a good time at the fire. Sometime we would wrap potatoes in tin foil and throw them on the coals when we went to bed and then in the morning they would be baked and we couple through em in the frying pan with a some onions and butter and make hash browns for our eggs. (Sometimes the raccoons would get the potatoes before we woke up and we would laugh and be somewhat disappointed).
During the school year we would go camping with the boy scout troop at least once a month. Again it was tents first and then wood for a fire, but a lot more wood. Thirty boys worth of wood to make a huge bonfire to start and then a good sized fire once it burned down to last the adults all night. The adults took shifts staying awake just in case a boy got up or some weirdo was out wandering the woods. So the wood smoke was ever present throughout the weekend trips. We would cook with it, entertain near it and just sit in its warmth and light in the dark of night. (No one had to go to bed at any time, but everyone was expected to get up in the morning. That usually kept us tired enough to go to bed at a reasonable hour).
Those trips were important for the boys because it was a break from the rigid school year structure. The trips were important for the adults too. It was an excuse to relax. They didn't party and relax. We never had drinkers. At worst they smoked in front of the children a real no,no in today's scouting world but perfectly accpetable back in the day. Many enjoyed the excuse to not work an extra day or spend a weekend running around getting things done that they couldn't do during the work week. Often their spouses were happy with them for relieving them of the burden of the children for a couple days. They sat around a fire and drank coffee and enjoyed teaching their children about nature and other scouting skills and because it was a shared burden it wasn't a particularly onerous one.
So while I anxiously await the warmer days so that I might get out and walk the neighborhod again, I still enjoy the cool air and the wood smoke and the memories it brings.
More Laters
posted by Rich Rosenthal II at 7:44 AM
2 Comments:
While I theoretically completely understand your love of the smell of burning wood or wood smoke, I have heard this from a number of "city kids".
I grew up in the most rural place imaginable and my parents' house sits on a piece of land the size of two football fields...but that are a lot of forest.
The smell of burning wood to me, brings back images of being woken up at the crack of dawn every day in the summer and on weekends during the school year (before sunrise=fewer mosquitos) to rake, burn leaves, pick rocks, mow lawns, weed gardens, pick veggies, rake seaweed from the beach...Yeesh.
It is the #1 reason I plan to spend the rest of my living days in a concrete jungle.
Most of the joys of the city are a twenty minute drive from any rural location in illinois. Sure there are more theaters and museums and stuff here but I find that most people (who live here) use em just about as often as people from outside the city who drive in for the day.
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