I was sitting here at the computer, and a memory from my childhood flashed in my mind. When I was about 13 we lived in what was know as a company house in the day. It was a house with 2 sides where 2 different families usually lived one on each side of a dividing wall. It was not a huge house but it was nice for what it was. It had a small kitchen and dining room and living room down stairs and out side had 2 bedrooms upstairs. The third bedroom that should have been on our side of the house had been sectioned off to the other side of the house when the owner took in her 4 grandchildren. This house had a good roof the bathroom was a little weird it was in the basement the commode and sink were boxed in on one side of the basement, and the shower was on the other side. So you would go to the boxed in area get undressed and then go in a towel to the shower on the other side of the basement. It make for a bit chilly showering in the winter.
The house was heated by forced air heat. Back in the day and for that matter even now that is not the most efficient heating , but we figured out a way to work around it. We had an old green recliner chair in the living room near the heating vent. They had to be set away from the walls back then to allow them to recline. I am not even sure who discovered this first, but we discovered if you laid on the floor behind the chair you could put you feet right in front of the heating vent and get the nice warm air first before it had time to chill in the rest of the room. The cool thing was the recliner was slid down away form the wall at the end also so you could lay behind the recliner with your feet on the vent and your head sticking out the side. That positions kept you warm and also allowed you to watch tv at the same time. My brother, our mother, and I all spent time in that spot. More the once someone would fall asleep there all snuggled up with a blanket over them a pillow under their head and their feet on the warm vent. Our dad never tried that spot out he would rather set in the recliner with his feet propped up.
I had not thought of that vent or how warm and secure that made ups feel for decades. Perhaps it was the phone call i got from my brother earlier that jarred it in my mind. He wanted to ask me what the daughter of one of our neighbors from there was, and it got me thinking about those times. Then when my furnace kicked on the memory of that warm vent flashed in my mind. It is funny how the smallest things will trigger long tucked away memories is it not?
