Early rising on cold winter mornings almost always kindles for me a momentary feeling of comfort, safety and well-being.
What, specifically, keys that response? It is the memory from my childhood of feeling forced warm air on my bare feet.
My parents built their home on a piece of land given to my mother by her father. The house was built after World War II, delayed until after dad used the GI Bill to earn his bachelor’s degree at the University of South Carolina and his master’s degree in social work from Tulane.
The house was built with a fireplace in the living room and a centrally located flue, but included no furnace with ductwork. We had a stove located at that flue—perhaps a Warm Morning brand—that burned home heating oil. It kept the central room warm, but bedrooms, which extended like wings from the core of the house, stayed warm only by the heat from the stove radiating into the outer rooms.
In other words, the bedrooms were cold.
My grandmother told stories about heating bricks on a wood stove, then wrapping them in a pillowcase and shoving them in at the foot of the bed to give her and her sisters a sense of warmth as they went to sleep.
From that I must have gotten the idea to hang my childhood quilt on the heating stove as I prepared for bed on winter nights. I have the distinct memory of warming my quilt then running with it to the bed, wrapping it around my feet and sliding under the covers.
That heat didn’t last long, but neither did I, usually, and I would be fast asleep within minutes.
In the morning I could feel the chill in the air, though my bed—covered with blankets and quilts—was warm.
I would put on slippers and a robe, then scoot into the dining room to sit behind the stove to warm up.
Everything changed when I was about eight years old, when mom used credit at Sears to purchase an oil furnace.
After the crew sent by Sears installed the ductwork, the centrally located stove was hauled away.
That eliminated my warming spot, but I quickly learned that I could sit atop a furnace grate to feel the pulsing hot air. I could even wrap my quilt around my shoulders and let it hang down like a tent, trapping the furnace air inside to warm my skinny, cold bones.
As I grew older I would stand barefoot on the furnace grate, letting the hot air warm my toes and blow up the legs of my pajamas.
From such come these memories.
Being a bit heavier now, I don’t get bone chilled in the night, no matter how low I turn the furnace. When I awaken I usually walk barefoot to the kitchen to start the coffee, stop in the hall to turn up the thermostat, then patter to the bathroom.
Our bathroom has the furnace duct located in the toe kick, or foot board, of the vanity. As I stand there staring at my unruly hair and taking my vitamins, I feel the lovely warm air across the floor, across my toes, across my feet.
And from across the years comes the memory of sitting atop the furnace grate, and the feeling that I was ensconced in a home of love and warmth.
My mother often let actions speak instead of words. Divorced with four children, she went back to school to graduate college when she was over 50, and she squeezed pennies—and used Sears revolving credit—to purchase what she could to keep the house a home.
Mom still had debt when she died at age 88, debt built over decades as she held her family together.
She always fretted over the thermostat, telling me I shouldn’t turn it too high. Put on a sweater. Wear warm socks. Heat your quilt to warm your bed. Burrow deep under the covers and let your body heat do the job.
Or, as Nana and her sisters did, heat a brick.
I do not wish a cold home on anyone. Yet, I have warmth in my heart remembering what it was like to feel the cold indoors, knowing my mother did everything she could to keep us warm.
—Jonathan Austin