Mountain Cabin

When most of us picture a mountain cabin we see it nestled all alone in the middle of a forest. We see a vision of serenity and wonderment. We imagine in our minds a peace that passes all understanding. While all of this is true there is also the human element involved and that is what I touching on briefly today.

I moved to such a cabin in my early years as a newlywed. Most would say that I had led a very sheltered life up to that point. While we were in poverty straits as far as money is concerned, we were rich in experiences that followed in the dense forest.

This was a small one bedroom cabin. When I walked in the back door, I walked right into the kitchen. There sat this huge black square iron box. When I asked what it was, I was told it was the cook stove. My reply was, "where are the knobs to turn it on?" You guessed it, the answer was the axe in the back yard at the wood pile. I quickly learned to chop wood and am proud to say that I only chopped through the toe of one pair of shoes in the process.

Okay, on with the tour, when I entered the bathroom I expected to see a hot water heater since there had not been one in the kitchen. I saw the heater but it didn't seem to be fueled by anything. I was almost afraid to ask the next question, but being so inquisitive, I said, "How does it heat?" At that point, I was led back into the kitchen and shown the pipes running through the fire box of the huge black thing. I thought that was pretty clever of the male species, no cooking no hot baths. The best was yet to come for that huge black thing. I went out into the back yard to cut some fire wood and there sat a big bear. Just sitting there. I asked him to move and he still just sat there. So I sat down on the back porch and just stared at him and I guess he got tired of looking at me because after about 30 minutes he got up and ambled back into the woods.

Well, I have lots to do today such as getting the cub ready for Church camp, birthday party this weekend for a cubette, redhawks ballgame, and delivering the cub to Madill for a week. However, I have more to say about the cabin life so will continue it next time.