wood smoke . . .

There are certain senses that take you back to a different time and place. Wood smoke does that for me. Yesterday, it was chilly in the morning and so after having had a half cord of wood delivered last week, I built a fire. Wood smoke . . . that rich oaky aroma, wafted through the house, filling every space with its strong masculine scent.

Curled up in my recliner, buoyed by the warm air and the bouquet of roasting wood, I stared into the flames and slowly left for places remembered.



Our house on Cedar Road was a combination of salt box and Cape Cod. Small pine paneled rooms on the ground floor, bedrooms tucked under the eaves upstairs. The fireplace took up most of the south living room wall. Because of the forest behind our house, wood was plentiful and free and I'm sure augmented my parents heating bills.

Nothing better then to come in, half frozen, from an embattled free-for-all in the snow with the neighborhood kidlets, and be greeted with the warmth of a fire, a mug of hot chocolate and some marshmallows for roasting.

We lived on that dead-end road until I was seven. At which point, my parents went for a walk and came home having bought a new house . . . but that is fodder for another story.

Cedar road had only ten or so houses on the section south of the Drive . . . and 24 kidlets. Lots of playmates although we usually played with those exactly our own age. Who knows why. But the sledding in winter was fabulous. We'd start at the top of the Burwell's lawn across the street from us . . . it sloping beautifully down to the street. On the other side lay our very steep driveway, then the abrupt and harrowing fall through the woods and down to Haycock Brook and across to the gentle upward slope on the other side . . . where we came to a rest.

We would beg, entreat, plead and generally whine to our parents to stop the sandmen from dusting our street. Big crocodile tears would form in our eyes, only to be swept away by frozen snow clogged mittens . . . we developed wailing to a fine art those winter days. Finally, after one particularly perfect-for-sledding snowfall, our father and Irv Klein . . . our next door neighbor and father to three rather rambunctious kids . . . stopped the truck and chatted in earnest. We leaned in as far as we dared to hear the conversation and waited for the results. And waited, and waited until finally, the dreaded sander started his engine again and continued on down the street. We wept copious tears until we finally noticed he had left a six foot long area free of sand, right along our path. Such joy that day . . . such cheering and reveling and grabbing of Flexible Fliers. A line formed at the top of Burwell's lawn as one by one we waited our turn to rocket, belly down, through the course and down the other side.

Heroes were made that day and the men who left for work so early in the morning and returned often as not, after bedtime, grew in momentous stature in our eyes. Actually, until my father passed away in the summer of 1998, he remained my hero, my sounding board, my friend.

Such was life in the 50's.