Big Boom Below

 Not too long ago, I came across one of those links on Facebook that was posted by a group with a name like "Remember the 50s," "Things That Used to Be," or "You Know You're Old When..." Pictured there was a floor furnace, with a caption that read, "Remember these?" How could I forget?

For those of us of a certain age who grew up in parts of the country where gas heat was the norm, the floor furnace was a standard feature of many post-WWII homes. It consisted of a rectangular grille which sat level with the floor and a compartmentalized gas burner structure beneath the floor. In Memphis, where I grew up, most people's houses had foundations, not basements, and thus the inner workings sat between the floor above and the bare ground below. A small window atop one of the compartments provided a view of the pilot light below. The only way to access all the floor furnace innards was by crawling under the house, which of course chanced encounters with all kinds of insects and other beasts. Such endeavors were always best left to the professionals. The whole thing always looked a little dodgy to me, but it did keep the house warm.

One unique feature of floor furnaces was that due to expansion and contraction of the gas compartment, they would periodically produce noise. For the most part, we adapted to the sound such that it became part of the collective creaks and groans of the house, but every now and then, if the furnace experienced major metal motility, it would emit a large and very loud boom. It was always necessary to warn first-time visitors about the boom, and if we didn't, we'd often find them emerging from the guest bedroom in a panic, fearing that Nikita Khruschev was about to come to blows with Homeboy Elvis. It was unsettling, to say the least.

A considerable amount of focused heat emanated from the floor furnace, such that standing on its grates with thin house shoes, or worse, barefoot, was taking a calculated risk. On several occasions, a guest would hear the loud boom, then flee in their nightclothes, stepping on the furnace along the way, certain that they had, as both Catholics and Presbyterians would say in their Apostle's Creed, "descended into hell" within what appeared to be a cozy little 1949 house. It could inject a fair amount of anxiety into someone's visit, but after that first night, it generally became a source of amusement to all.

Nowadays, heat comes from all over the place. Our current HVAC system features all kinds of blinking LED lights to let you know that it has everything under control. The house stays warm, and no one ever burns their feet, so there's that. But sometimes late at night, when I awaken at 3:15 AM, I wonder -- if both Khruschev and Elvis have passed on, are we really out of the woods?

Emerge 2024: A Cicada Conference

Here at Brooksville, we're busy preparing for the arrival of the 13- and 17-year cicadas. In order to get a little ahead of the curve, I'm publishing our tentative schedule for Emerge 2024. Please forward any questions directly to me.

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Friday, May 3

5:30 PM -7:00 PM:
Check-in at Brooksville Deck. Free luggage storage.

7:30 PM - 10:00 PM:
Emerge 2024 Welcome Xylem Dinner, featuring keynote speaker Dr. Hemiptera McIntosh, author of "Sing Your Heart Out"

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Saturday, May 4

10:00 AM - Noon:
Breakout Sessions: 
  Below Deck: "What You Missed in Hibernation"
  Above Deck: "Making the Most of Your Emergence"

1:00 PM - 3:00 PM:
Breakout Sessions:
  Below Deck: "Lessons Learned: How We Occupied DC in 2021"
  Above Deck: "Strategies to Avoid Being Eaten by Household Pets"

6:00 PM - Midnight:
Celebratory Dinner and Dancing on Front Lawn, featuring dining on some of the region's premier plant materials and music by the one and only Sik-Ā-Da-Mon

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Sunday, May 5

7:00 AM - 9:30 AM:
Go-Forth Farewell Breakfast

9:45 AM - 11:00 AM:
Group Sing-a-Long and Goodbyes

11:45 AM:
Checkout time. Ridesharing available.

The Chocolate Set

My mom and her husband had finally decided to sell their farmhouse just outside Jackson, Tennessee. Set way back from the road, it had always been a favorite destination of ours, one where we'd shared many warm and wonderful family times. But in recent years, my folks had been spending most of their time in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, way over in East Tennessee, so they felt it was time get what they could for the farm property and move on. In 2004, they decided to host an estate sale at the farmhouse, and my Aunt Ida Mae, who lived about 30 miles away in Trenton, offered to help them get everything ready.

Going through a house where you've lived for some fifty-odd years always presents challenges in the sheer volume of articles to be sifted through, and this was certainly no exception. It was decided that the staging area for the sale would be the large dining room, which when I visited was chock-full of dishes, silverware, utensils, and a smattering of memorabilia. Fortunately, neither my mom nor her husband was big into collecting, but even so, the accumulated assortment of household goods was somewhat remarkable, and the dining room table was overflowing.

The sale went off without a hitch and seemingly, to everyone's satisfaction. A few items of special significance had been put away and were not part of the sale, but by the time the event was over, the happy couple was able to list the property and head east to start their next chapter of home ownership. From a distance, it appeared to me that the sale had progressed well. Little did I know that trouble was brewing.

My mom Peggy and her sister Ida (whom all those of her age called Ida Mae) were close. Although twelve years apart in age, they were best friends. When Ida would come to Memphis to visit, she and my mom would routinely stay up until past 2:00 in the morning, drinking coffee and catching up with each other's lives. Although different in temperament, my mom being the subtle one and my aunt the outspoken steel magnolia, they shared enough in common that they were, in modern parlance, "besties." Whenever Ida was around, laughter inevitably ensued. So, it came as a surprise when only a few weeks after the sale had been completed, my mom mentioned to me on the phone one day that she and Ida had encountered "a little problem" and weren't speaking, which to my knowledge had never happened.

It appeared that during the sifting through of the household goods in preparation for the sale, my mom had found a porcelain "chocolate set," similar to the one pictured here, consisting of a pitcher and four matching cups. It was of the design that was so popular throughout the early part of the 20th century, flowers and ribbons, that sort of thing, but that was my mom's style. According to her, when she found the set, she mentioned to Ida that she hadn't seen it for years and was so happy that their mother had left it to her. (My grandmother had passed away 38 years earlier.) Suddenly, Ida stopped what she was doing and said, "No, Peggy, Mother left it to me. Remember?" My mom certainly did not remember, and that's where the trouble began.

The next time I talked to my mother, after we had exchanged our routine updates about what was happening in Atlanta and in Pigeon Forge, I asked how Ida was doing, assuming that the rift had passed. "Well, I haven't heard from her," was my mom's reply. I thought this somewhat odd, given their lifelong closeness, but I let it pass and moved on to other topics. But as the weeks, then months, of 2005 went by, my mom's answer when asked about Ida remained the same, that no words had been exchanged between them. I became concerned about this, because my mom and aunt had always relied on each other to be there. Treading lightly, I finally asked my mom if she had tried to reach out to Ida. The answer was, "Well, no." A-ha. Digging deep into an academic background in psychology and human behavior that I had never used professionally, I suggested that she might make the first move.

Sometime in the very early days of 2006, the dam finally broke. My mom mentioned to me rather casually that yes, she and Ida were back on speaking terms. I didn't ask for details but expressed my happiness that the situation had been resolved. However, the elation turned out to be short-lived, because Ida took her last breath in January of 2007. By this time, my mom had begun to suffer from a debilitating respiratory condition and was unable to attend Ida's funeral. I was quite concerned, because I knew that only if she were in very poor condition would my mom not have been there for her sister. And it turned out that my concern was warranted, for my mom passed away fifteen months later, in April of 2008. It occurred to me that in their last few years together, and I would go so far as to call that time precious, a dispute about an inanimate object had come between them.

A few weeks after my mom had passed, we started going through her possessions, trying to decide which to keep and which to give away. Our two daughters had fond regard for some of the items, but when it came to the chocolate set, they both treated it as if it were made of plutonium. Finally, Sarah said that she'd like to have the pitcher and glasses set with etched sailboat designs, and Hannah agreed to inherit the chocolate set. (But it still doesn't live with her, so there's that.)

Of course, there's a lesson in all this that we shouldn't get too wrapped up in trivial disagreements, because we never know what's right around the corner. At this point, I can only hope that somewhere up on high, my mom and Ida are together sipping coffee, not hot chocolate...out of paper cups.

In Living Color

 "The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC."

Words like those, heard often on American TV back in the 1960s, signaled that the program about to be aired was something special. Instead of being broadcast in black and white, those of us lucky enough to have a color TV would be treated to a veritable video rainbow. It sounds comical nowadays, but back then, a color TV was something of a luxury. My Aunt Alma had one, and my mom and I used to go over to her house on Friday evenings to watch shows like Gomer Pyle, USMC and Hogan's Heroes. It should be noted that our visits represented dedication to video excellence on the part of my mom and me, since Aunt Alma had a smelly little black poodle that she named Tangeroo, or in her words, "Tange-WOO." It was a sweet little dog, but still.

Fast forward sixty years or so, and here we are in a world that is very different, both in appearance and attitude, and yet still, people crave color in their lives. I'm not sure whether you've noticed, but if you take a look at home design websites or magazines, you'll see a return to color. People are no longer scared of painting a room something other than a safe neutral, and that is really livening things up. I think I have some ideas about why this is occurring.

For one, it's just time. Color choices are cyclical. Several years ago, we were all laughing at those midcentury kitchen shades of harvest gold, copper tone, and avocado. And yellow? Fuhgeddaboudit. But now, I'm seeing colorful kitchens on HGTV and Discovery Plus. Granted, I have yet to see the aforementioned marvelous three, but blues and greens are in abundance. And I read an article last week that yellow (in tasteful shades of course, because otherwise, it can knock you silly) is experiencing a comeback.

Another reason for more color, I believe, is that people need some brightening up, both in their lives and in their surroundings. Face it, we've kinda got a mess going on in the world at large, and I think that most people like to decorate their homes in such a way that they are either soothed or energized, depending on the person and the room in question. With more people working remotely and spending larger amounts of time at home, this seems perfectly understandable.

I have to stop here for a minute and address the popularity of "griege," you know, that shade of gray that has for some years appeared to be the perfect neutral. Granted, we have two rooms in our house that are painted variations of it, but I was surprised recently when, at a loss for how to decorate my gray office/study/Casbah, one of my daughters suggested that it was missing an accent color to bring in a little warmth. Enter some rust accent pieces, and voila, problem solved.

This color shift also appears to be applying to vehicles. Back in the 1970s especially, you could buy a car in almost any color of the rainbow. Some of these were glorious, others appalling, but nevertheless, they were striking, not to mention easily identifiable by either friends or law enforcement, depending on how close to the edge one conducted one's personal business. For a while there, it seemed that all vehicles were neutral, but that too is changing. The Germans, always a driven people, seemed never to have let the color wheel stop spinning. Germans are not afraid to put any color on a car and call it a day. (I can say this because I'm part German myself.) I've had three BMW's, and they were all neutral, but doggone it, if I ever get another one, it will probably be some shade that will make me glad I had cataract surgery.

In summary, I'm actually glad to see all these colors back. To me, it signals a positive change in people's willingness to express themselves in a way that is harmless to society, and heaven knows, we need more of that. There's no need for our environments to be as sterile as the inside of a refrigerator or for all rooms to be the color of the Sahara. Let's live a little.

By the way, I have my eye on some green Allbirds shoes. Think I'm gonna go for it.

The Three Krogers

There's a popular meme afloat these days that reads something like, "I'm at the place in my life where running errands counts as 'going out'." I think that if we were all to be honest with ourselves, this is actually the case for many of us, particularly since the Covid lockdown. But there's a grain of truth to this adage, in that we really don't have to explore too far to satisfy our need for a shot of dopamine from time to time. If you're not familiar with that oft-mentioned neurotransmitter, Psychology Today provides a succinct and accurate definition of its effects: 

Dopamine causes you to want, desire, seek out, and search. It increases your general level of arousal and your goal-directed behavior. Dopamine makes you curious about ideas and fuels your search for information. 

This is true; indeed, one needs look no further than the nearest grocery store to get a dopamine fix. Now, that's crazy, you say, but honestly, when you grab that last shopping cart and enter those automatic doors, don't you feel a little rush seeing all that food right there in front of you? Of course, you do. 

For some reason, in our area of north suburban Atlanta, we have three Kroger supermarkets within a two-mile radius. We refer to them by nicknames, and so they are "Kroger 3000", 1.5 miles from our house, so named becuase it is located at 3000 Old Alabama Road, "Scott Road Kroger", 1.4 miles away, and "Rivermont", a veritable field trip at 1.8 miles down the road. (There is a Publix thrown in there, and that's a good thing, because they have the best prices on pet food.) All these stores have been in business for at least 15 years. You'd have thought that at least one of them would have closed, but instead, two of them have been totally remodeled in a somewhat post-apocalyptic style, while the third retains its bright, cheery personality. The first two can reduce the dopamine flow a bit, but then you see the Cheez-Its, and it shoots right back up there. 

I was fortunate to marry a lady who is an incredible cook and baker, so I'm often sent on shopping trips, and to be honest, I don't mind that at all, since I grew up in the grocery business and have always had something of an interest in it. Since I quit working full-time a while ago, I actually find myself at a store several times a week, and every time I'm there, I find something that either fascinates or appalls me, sometimes both in one trip. Who can say that's not excitement? 

Some years ago, when Scott Road was built, the designers included animated figures above several of the departments. This was endlessly fascinating to children and to more than a few adults. A cow mooed above the dairy section, and a nearby chicken let out a happy cackling sound as eggs descended beneath her, each accompanied by a happy slide whistle sound. When Scott Road was remodeled, many of these animatronic wonders were silenced, casting a pall over an otherwise lighthearted shopping experience. I mean, it had been like being at Disney, but for a lot less money. 

I always appreciate the spontaneous joy that is sparked by produce misting. There you are, looking for turnips, when suddenly, you find yourself in a suburban rainforest, closing your eyes and basking in the gentle, refreshing mist, all while other shoppers look at you as if you have ingested a big bowl of peyote. Produce is general is exciting, because it's so unpredictable. You can have been at the store on Tuesday morning and seen beautiful fresh green beans, but when you return at 5:30 PM, along with all the "happy" shoppers who are stopping by on the way home from work, all that's left of said vegetables is a sad assortment of wispy green strings which appear to have been used in the filming of a Walking Dead episode. It's a very temporal thing, produce is. 

Speaking of, the most difficult item to find in any of our Three Krogers is shallots. A few weeks ago, my wife sent me shopping with a list that I thought (and that's the operative word here) included them. I recalled from an earlier visit how hard they had been to locate. What I didn't really pay attention to was the fact that she had asked for SCALLIONS. Despite the fact that I'm an over-60 male, I do know what scallions are, but having this bizarre fixation on shallots instead, I desperately asked a produce employee if they had any scallions. He looked at me quizzically and then pointed to a bin no more than 15 feet away and said, "Scallions? Those are green onions. They're right there." And I knew, right then and there, that he was laughing at me. Of course, I knew what scallions were, I thought. Was I losing my mind? No, I told myself, I got them confused with SHALLOTS, which are nigh-on-impossible to find. It's a mistake anyone could make, I told myself.

One particular factor that added a bit of challenge to the otherwise engaging activity of grocery shopping during the Covid era was the forced redirection of customers up and down the aisles in such a way that they would minimize contact with each other. At each of the Three Krogers, and also in The Publix, removable tape was put down in each aisle, indicating the direction traffic was to flow. I liked this, because it seemed to avoid traffic jams among shoppers, and to some degree, it minimized the sudden about-face that someone does when they realize that they've forgotten something farther back down the aisle. Not that I have ever been guilty of that, of course. When the tape was removed, all hell broke loose, and now you have to stand your ground in front of the peanuts in order to avoid getting sideswiped. 

So honestly, I think there's something to that meme I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Years ago, I had to drive all over Atlanta to satisfy my need for urban exploration, but these days, I only need drive less than two miles to experience a rush of dopamine. I try to park in the same area in front of each respective store, so that there's no gotta-find-my-car stress when exiting. Truly, I feel the joy sparking in a way that would make Marie Kondo proud. 

By the way, I think one of the reasons that overhead chicken isn't cackling any more is because her eggs are selling for over $5.00 a dozen. But that's another post. Ciao.