Woodboogers Eat Doughnuts

My kids like to watch this show on Netflix -- Finding Bigfoot. I think it's utterly ridiculous. A bunch of crock. A noisy little bit of fiction that makes me cringe. People really believe this? (My faith in American TV viewers is at an all-time low since learning this summer that there is an actual television show that comes on actual television called Naked and Afraid. I'm not even gonna link it here. You are way too intelligent to check it out.)

So, my boys tune into this Bigfoot search periodically and I'm left to my own business of dusting furniture or grading papers or trying to read the Rick Bragg column in the back of Southern Living as a Chewbacca soundtrack plays in the background. Over and over and over and over again. Bigfoot and Chewbacca are apparently close cousins.

So, yeah, it's annoying on many levels. 

But then we went home to Norton, Virginia, last fall to bury my mom. And for once in a million moons, I was there when the Home Hardware was open.

(They used to be open on Saturdays. When they decided to close years ago, they warned my Uncle Mitchell, a Home Hardware regular, that they'd be closed that Saturday morning. He showed up with homemade biscuits and gravy for his friends anyway. They didn't get any. They were closed of course. Rocked his world, I tell you.) 

Home Hardware is more than just a hardware store. It's more like a department store that's a bit rough around the edges. From the porch rockers and chain saw carvings to the rotating bins of nails, screws, fasteners, and the sort, to the Red Rider wagons parked right beside about 20 crocks in various sizes in the front window festooned with Hokie flags and UT flags and Kentucky somewhere flags, it's a little something for everyone. I myself like to sniff the candles and check out the heft of the cast iron skillet collection. I also enjoy staring up at the tin ceiling. 

But the real draw for me was the Woodbooger tee shirt collection. Piles and piles of tee shirts. Long sleeves. Short sleeves. Colors galore. Hoodies even! Squatch Watch shirts for everyone! One of the men working there struck up a conversation with me as I fondled the shirts. He told me how the Bigfoot people had come to town a couple of years back searching for, um, Bigfoot. The Woodbooger, he's called around these parts. They combed High Knob looking for the Woodbooger but never did find him. They even tried to lure him out of the woods with doughnuts. I think he said they had sprinkles.  (If only they'd had Cab's doughnuts. They'd have found him for sure.)

He also told me that they'd ordered about 60 shirts initially, figuring they might sell them and make a little money. They sold out quickly, so Home Hardware ordered more. They even opened on a Saturday to sell them! Since that initial rush, they've topped 3,000 and they're still selling. (This was a year ago. I bet they're way over that amount now.) We bought one for each of us and a couple for our friends who loaned us their truck for the weekend. Currently, I'm thinking Christmas presents for everyone on my list!

And now I have to confess that I'm almost a believer. Well, a believer in the Woodbooger. Bigfoot? Never. But this Woodbooger? Well, the proof is right on Home Hardware's Facebook page. Wouldn't you believe? 

Sparkly Providence

Behold, the boiler.

She's a beauty, huh? All curvy and strong and complex with just the right amount of coppery shine tossed in. She sparkles. She actually sparkles! 

We cranked her up last weekend when the outside temps dipped into the 40s and I felt in my very bones the single degree drop from 67 to 66. With a couple of button pushes on the thermostat, clink, she was ON.

You just wouldn't believe the racket we heard one floor up.  
Bam! went one radiator
Hissss! went another
POP! 
POP POP POP!!! 
Clang! Bang!  Radiators all over the house are waking up from a summer hibernation.
Thunk! 
POP!!! POP!!! POP!!!  HISSSSSSS! All radiators fully operational

And then, WOOOOOOOOSH!

That one concerned us, so Curt ventured to the basement while I cheered him on from the safety of the couch. When he emerged, soot-less and fancy-free, it was to announce that the boiler had successfully filled itself with water. 

This might seem like a no-brainer, but in our experience, steam heat boilers don't necessarily do this on their own. Take last winter when we had to stomp down to the basement, rotate the water-fill valve on the old boiler (who was definitely not shiny), and wait till the clear beaker-looking pipe filled to the black Sharpie line with heat-producing water. Only then would the old boiler clunk on and fire up. 

We did this every six hours. 
All North Polar Vortex winter long. 
If you missed the 6-hour refill mark, you were cut off. 

This reminds me of the time Mom and Dad came to visit us back in the early '90s up on King George Avenue. Curt was at work on this freezing weekday morning, perhaps a snow day since I was at home. It felt chilly in our old house when I woke up. I wrapped my robe around me and went searching for Mom and Dad. They weren't upstairs in the guest room or bathroom. Not downstairs in the kitchen or living room. Certainly not outside. They were missing. I finally found them in the basement huddled by the furnace trying to get warm. Turns out, the thermostat was set to cool down during the day and heat up in the evenings when we were home, and I could not figure out how to reset it to make the furnace turn back on. We had to call Curt at work to come rescue us. Dad declared every house we ever lived in after that was too cold.  

And there's the other spot of glory in this boiler, besides its self-filling water feature. This is a surprise birthday gift to my family from my mom. 

Impossible, you say? She did pass away a year ago last Friday. Last year for my 45th birthday, she gave me an unconscious reflexive grin from the cardiac ICU, four days before she would be reunited with Dad and Michelle and in the presence of Jesus.  But this year there was no promise of a card or phone call or surprise package. Until the day a letter came from MetLife to me, her beneficiary, seeking to close her account. After sending the appropriate forms and a copy of the death certificate, we got a check for 10 times what we figured. Enough for a new steam heat boiler. Enough to keep us from huddling by the old one in the basement on cold winter days. Or even fuming down the steps to refill it every six hours. Enough to keep us warm for decades to come. How providential. 

Thanks, Mom.