Dreams of warmth in Brooklyn

Winters in Brooklyn were cold.  The wind would whip in off the ocean, which was only three blocks away, and chill you to the bone. We stayed inside a lot during the winters, warmed by the gigantic octopus of a furnace that took up a third of the basement. I knew that my parents put coal in the furnace, that they took out the ash cans, that someone had to maintain that heat, but other than watching the men deliver coals down the chute,  its warmth was taken for granted.

Every once in a while, however, heat became the center of my attention. It became a focus on those “adventures” that my father would cook up that took us 50 miles North to Lake Carmel.

We had, in those days, a 1942 Ford sedan. My Dad told us that it was the last one made by Ford before the factories were turned over to production for the war.  I don’t know if that was true, but it sounded good. Anyway, we would pile into that Ford and head out on the Gowanus parkway toward the country and my grandparents’ bungalow. To be clear, my grandparents owned the bungalow. They lived on 88th Street in Brooklyn during the winter.  No one lived on Ogden and Clarkson Roads in the winter. The bungalow was in off-season state – no water, no heat.  That was where we were headed for the “adventure.”

To set the stage, my mother was not as enthused about this as my father. But she was a good sport and packed food for the trip, made sure that the fire was banked in that octopus of a furnace and lassoed a relative to come in that evening to add coal. No need to chance frozen pipes, although I do think that, being one in a long row of party wall houses, that wasn’t a real problem for our home.

There were several de rigueur stops along the way to the bungalow.

Our journey took us over the Brooklyn Bridge, where there always was someone selling fresh roasted peanuts in the shell on the Manhattan side. We’d stop and buy a bag, and the smell alone was wonderful.  I sat in the middle of the front seat and my job was to shell the peanuts and pass them to my three siblings who sat in the back. My mother’s job was to complain about the mess that I was making while my Dad scarfed down his portion of goober peas and promised that he would clean up the errant shells.

We would stop about half way along the Croton Reservoir to have a snack of cream cheese and jelly on saltines washed down with orange juice. That snack never changed, no matter the trip or the season.

We’d pull into the tiny IGA in Lake Carmel and get some milk and fresh bread and then on to O’Brien’s gas station a mile or so later to fill the tank.

When we arrived at the bungalow, we kids would scatter into the woods to gather sticks for the fire while my parents tried to raise the sub-zero-like temperatures inside of the house to something that humans could abide.

They built a fire in the pot-bellied stove in the living room.  That old stove would glow with heat and, if you sat within three feet, you could feel it, otherwise we kept our coats on, with my Dad smiling at roughing it and my mother grumbling about the lack of water and toilet facilities. The latter wasn’t tops on the kids’ list of positives, either.

“We have to use a potty?”

“Gross.”

Huddled around the stove, we played board games, cards, sometimes had a family sing along and, yes, we did those things, as odd as it seems today. Dinner was sandwiches and hot chocolate from a thermos. We listened to “Gunsmoke” on the ancient radio, remembering Marshall Dillon, portrayed by William Conrad, say “It’s a chancy job, and it makes a man watchful … and a little lonely.”  We went to bed with our coats on, the heat from that stove not reaching the bedrooms.  I asked if I could sleep next to the stove.  You can imagine that the answer was “no,” as it was too dangerous.  I dreamed of being warm.

Morning took us to church, to Wilcox’s pharmacy in Carmel for breakfast and then,  home … no stopping … to the house at 329 55th Street, with its octopus furnace and warmth.

Still, memories of those adventures, of my Dad’s desire to “rough it,” bring back another warmth, more lasting than the octopus furnace that was soon converted to oil.