Chestnuts by the open fire
Who has recently spent time in a doctor's office, urgent care or emergency room? I've been lucky so far and haven't been to any of these places this season, but when out in public, I hear that chesty cough and cringe. Currently, I have way too many family and friends fighting an upper respiratory infection or covid itself. I've been there myself. Many years back I spent six months with a bronchial pneumonia that just wouldn't go away. I was living in New Zealand at the time and if anyone has ever experienced an Auckland winter, you'll know what I mean when I describe their winter months as cold and wet.
No, I'm not talking Northeast Ohio cold where temps don't rise above freezing for months and you just get used to your lawn being a blanket of snow. Winter temperatures in Auckland, New Zealand rarely dip below 40 degrees fahrenheit. Sounds like a reasonable way to make your way through the winter months, right? Well, that is what I banked on when I moved there in 1984. What I soon learned was, with no central heating, 40 degrees outside is like 40 degrees inside. Then, just add the heavy damp air into this weather equation; a cold, wet that soaks through to your bones .... and lungs. This constant dampness had me praying to be back in Ohio's freezing temperatures, but with the comfort of central heating.
There wasn't any central heating back in the 19th century either. Recently, I discovered a vacant old ancestral home in Carroll County, Ohio. While it is still standing after 140+ years, I was taken aback by the condition inside. Vandals had left their mark and all of their trash. What a huge project it would be to try to resurrect this home to it's former beauty. And yet the basic structure appears perfectly sound and the tongue and groove floor boards are still present in most of the rooms I wandered through. What really took my fancy was to find no fewer than three fireplaces still in situ! That's how my grandfather's grandfather's brother and his family kept themselves warm. No doubting that my ancestors worked through their winter colds and flu, just as we do today. However, doesn't a fire pit on every floor with a roaring fire in it sound so inviting? Maybe, it was this exact imagery Nat King Cole was recreating for us when he sang about the chestnuts roasting on an open fire in The Christmas Song? And just in case you were wondering, it was Mel Torme and Robert Wells who actually wrote the lyrics to this song.
And so I'm offering this simple phrase (blog) to kids from one to ninety-two ....