Travel for Pennies

When I was young, one of my favorite things to do was to go to my Great-Grandfather Bonnie’s home.  Fireplace stories were his speciality, and even though I did not understand many of the stories of the days of old, I remember the way he tilted his head, and I remember the soft glow of his fireplace.  Even at 98 years old, he chopped and stacked his own wood each spring, in order to give the wood the time to dry thoroughly through before the winter time months rolled in.

My Great-Grandfather was from Scotland, part of the MacGregor clan, so part of my trouble with understanding his stories was simply in understanding his accent.  For although he had lived in the United States for fifty years, he never seemed to loose one bit of it.  Looking back, I realize how important those quiet times are, sitting around the fireplace with family members and listening to bits from their history, or their stories from a day spent yesterday in the garden.  A fireplace gives a family a place to relax, to communicate and to reconnect with one another.

Now days, it is not necessary to chop wood, and haul it through the forest or the field.  For one thing, you can buy a bag of wood at the store.  And for another thing, there are gas burning fireplaces and electric models which make the lighting of the fire, and the cleanup afterward, a cinch.  Giving you more time to sit and have a long chat late into the evening hours.  Around the holidays, nothing can beat the ambiance of a fire burning, with empty stockings hanging on the mantle. waiting for the night that they get filled with treats and other goodies.  My Great Grandfather, is no long here, but the memories I have of him remain to this day, and always when I am sitting in front of that same soft glow.

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