Timely solutions for a too-busy Fall

(731 words)

I don’t want to come off as sour on romance, but I hope next Fall some lovely young couple invites us to their wedding, has a big senseless fight at the rehearsal dinner and acrimoniously calls the whole thing off.

I swear I’ll send them both presents.

It’d give me a surprise vacancy on a calendar that’s far too crowded.

Fall is maybe my favorite time of the year. I love the crisp air, the tartan leaves, the quickening of the days.

And I love to mostly ignore all of that while sitting inside my basement on long Saturday afternoons watching college football.

But Fall somehow’s become absolutely insane.

I guess people sense the weather is about to close in on us all and we’ll be marooned inside for the next six months.

They feel a pressing need to squeeze all the outdoor time in the can. They plan picnics, festivals and reunions.

And they invite me to all of them.

It’s too much.

Ray, my wood guy — and by saying wood guy, he’s an actual person and not some cigar store Indian — is busy right now.

(Aside: I posed a Facebook question asking PC-PD if to be perfectly politically correct we should refer to cigar store Indians as cigar store Native Americans and my high school buddy Mark Reinhold shared, “TOKE-a-Hontas.” Yes!)

He dropped off a load of wood at the bottom of the driveway. Then he rolled his log splitter out back and set to work splitting a big stack of poplar we felled in the spring.

Now today he’s going to show up to timber a once-stately sugar maple tree that about three years ago got damaged in a heavy spring snow.

So — and I love this — I could spend the next three weekends playing lumberjack.

Break out the flannel!

See, Ray splits the wood, yes, but I like to split them so I can order the 9-year-old girl to carry small stacks up the stairs when I’m too lazy to do it myself.

Cutting wood with either an axe or a chainsaw is, unlike blogging, tangible work.

You see the work being done, recognize it is actual labor and at the end there’s a big pile of something you can see.

Some would argue this blog is a big pile of something, too, but let’s conclude the analogy right there.

And although you they sound virtually alike, you can’t set fire to a big pile of seasoned blogs.

I love when the seasons turn chilly and we can cozy in around the fireplace and infuse the whole house with the heady aroma of hearty soups cooking in the kitchen.

But this Fall that is not to be.

There’s something going on every weekend.

It’s not that I’m anti-social. It’s just I’d like to control when the socializing takes place, how distant it is from my hearth and when it ends.

I guess what I’m saying is I’d like to see all my friends and loved ones, but in the middle of the week when their bosses say they ought to be working.

That’s why I’d like to be invited to a wedding that busts up.

It’s be the sudden vanquishing of a weekend commitment, the liberating of precious free time to lounge.

I’ve long advocated we need to expand Daylight Saving Time to add years to our lives.

For instance, this year we set the clocks back one hour on November 1. It’ll be the to most glorious hour of the year. For every American, with the notable exception of some Hoosier eccentrics, it’ll be the most glorious hour of the year.

It’s like finding a $20 dollar bill breezing down the sidewalk.

I say we should escalate it by rolling back the clock an hour each week.

We’ll all be getting younger!

Why not expand the idea to have daylight saving seasons? I’d like enjoy a festive and fun-filled fall and then right before Thanksgiving have it announced we’re going to get a big do-over; a daylight savings fall.

That way we could enjoy maybe my favorite season all over again — but without all the activity clutter.

Now I understand some Type A calendar curmudgeons are going to complain that it’ll upset the rest of the year.

Well, I’ve got that all figured out.

We’ll skip winter!

Related . . .

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Free firewood? It’s true

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A magnificent life of impoverished leisure

After 15 years, turning the page on golf calendars

Yesterday was the best Halloween ever

Free Firewood? It's True!

The high topped 90-degrees yesterday and I received my first e-mail of the year requesting free firewood.

“I understand that you are giving away free firewood,” wrote Kenneth M. “I rely on firewood for cooking and for heat and would love to receive a free truckload or two of it. Please sign me up for this fantastic service!”

I used to be thrilled whenever a stranger e-mailed me asking for free firewood. As anyone who’s ever seen the homepage of www.chrisrodell.com knows, I’m the world’s leading purveyor of free firewood. No joke. I’ll send anyone, anywhere in North America free firewood.

Now I’m feeling more and more like a bit of creep because five or six people each year are gullible enough to fall for the world’s lamest joke.

It all started about 15 years ago. Val and I had a lovely little house with a cozy fireplace. I pity those of you who live in places that suffer from year-round sunshine. You’ll never know the pleasure of cuddling up with a loved one in front of a warming fire, charming fireplace implements at our side, while the wind’s blowing trash cans across the desolate lawn.

Go ahead, feel free to pity me right back this February when cabin fever has us all so crazy we’re ready to use those charming fireplace instruments to bash each other’s brains in.

But to enjoy the fire, you need an ingredient more essential than even dry matches.

You need wood. Lots of it. And for that you need an authentic woodsman.

I’d been warned that they are among the most boring carbon-based life forms on the planet. I was told they spend long days out there among the oak, maple and pine, and that they must spend most of that lonely time trying to converse with the bark.

This I found to be true. The woodsmen I’d hired to bring me a cord or two each fall universally seemed -- and pardon the pun -- stumped whenever I’d speak back.

Plus, they seemed to be a bit -- and here I go again -- shady in their woodsmen ethics. They’d bring less than promised or green wood that just insolently hissed at me rather than combust.

That I didn’t mind. What I could not tolerate was that not a one of them ever got my firewood joke. And, damn it, it’s funny. I’d spring it on them each time when we’d finished stacking.

I’d say, “Well, friend, how much do I owe you for this ‘ere wood?”

“I reckon (most woodsmen are reckoners) you owe me $125.”

At this point, no matter what the price, I’d feign shock. “Gee, $125! That’s a lot of money. I guess firewood doesn’t grow on trees!”

Silence. Nothing.

See, it’s funny because firewood is actually one of the few products you can buy that actually does grow on trees.

Had I ever found one woodsman who’d have slapped his torn jeans and said, “Ha! That’s a good one! Firewood don’t grow on trees! Ha! Ha!” I would have invited him inside for a beer and signed a 25-year contract for yearly delivery.

But the reaction was always dumbfounded silence.

So I decided to hell with the whole sorry bunch of them and ran out and bought my own chainsaw. Each year now I head out to harvest some lumber, marginally making me, a guy who talks and types for a living, feel at least a little bit like a manly dude.

And each year as I kneel down and light the first warming fire of the fall, my wife expresses her gratitude and support by saying something like, “I’m amazed you’ve made it another year without chopping off one of your arms or being crushed to death by a falling timber.”

I never dreamed when I conceived the site that people would actually think there’s such a thing as free firewood.

See, the joke is that the site doesn’t specify how much firewood I deliver for free.

So I invite readers of this blog to visit www.chrisrodell.com -- and to let me know if you need any free firewood. Look for it in your mailbox.

It’ll be free. It’ll be wood. And it’ll burn. If properly lit under mild wind conditions, there ought to be enough to set the delivery envelope ablaze. I suggest you put some paper and twigs around it if you want to kindle a bigger fire.

But first you’d better find an honest woodsmen. And good luck with that.

Those guys exactly grow on trees either.

Out on a limb for free firewood

I was thrilled, as I always am, when a stranger e-mailed me this morning asking about how he could get some free firewood.

As anyone who’s ever seen the homepage of www.chrisrodell.com knows, I’m the world’s leading purveyor of free firewood. No joke. I’ll send anyone, anywhere in North America, free firewood.

With home fuel and heating prices skyrocketing, can anyone name a better deal?

Of course, you can’t.

It all started about 15 years ago. Val and I had a lovely little house with a cozy fireplace. I pity those of you who live in places like Arizona or Florida that suffer from year-round sunshine. You’ll never know the pleasure of cuddling up with a loved one in front of a warming fire, charming fire place implements at our side, while the wind’s blowing blizzards and trash cans across the desolate lawn.

Go ahead, feel free to pity me right back this February when cabin fever has us all so crazy we’re ready to use those charming fire place instruments to bash each other’s brains in.

But to enjoy the fire, you need the one essential ingredient -- and I’m not talking about dry matches.

You need wood. Lots of it. And for that you need an authentic woodsman.

I’d been warned that most woodsmen, around here at least, are among the most boring carbon-based life forms on the planet. I was told they spend long days out there among the oaks, maples and pines, and that they must spend most of that lonely time trying to converse with the bark.

This I found to be true. The woodsmen I’d hired to bring me a cord or two each fall universally seemed -- and pardon the pun -- "stumped" whenever I’d speak back.

Plus, they seemed to be a bit -- and here I go again -- "shady" in their woodsmen ethics. They’d bring less than promised or lettuce green wood that just insolently hissed at me rather than combust.

That I didn’t mind. What I could not tolerate was that not a one of them ever got my firewood joke. And, damn it, it’s funny. I’d spring it on them each time when we’d finished stacking.

I’d say, “Well, friend, how much do I owe you for this ‘ere wood?”

“I reckon (many woodsmen are reckoners) you owe me $125.”

At this point, no matter what the price, I’d feign shock. “Gee, $125! That’s a lot of money. I guess firewood doesn’t grow on trees!”

Silence. Nothing.

See, it’s funny because firewood is actually one of the few products you can buy that actually does grow on trees.

Had I ever found one bearded woodsman who’d have slapped his torn jeans and said, “Ha! That’s a good one! Firewood don't grow on trees! Ha! Ha!” I would have invited him inside for a beer and signed a 25-year contract for annual delivery.

But the reaction was always the same: dumbfounded silence.

So I decided to hell with the whole sorry bunch of them and ran out and bought my own chainsaw. Each year now I head into the woods and harvest my own timber, something that marginally makes me, a guy who talks and types for a living, feel at least a little bit like a manly dude.

And each year as I kneel down and light the first warming fire of the fall, my wife expresses her gratitude and support by saying something like, “I’m amazed you’ve made it another year without chopping off one of your limbs or being crushed to death by a falling tree.”

So if you’ve never done so, please take a minute to visit www.chrisrodell.com and be sure to let me know if you need any free firewood.

And to my new friend, Dave S. in Glenview, Illinois, you can expect your shipment to arrive in the next week. Look for it in your mailbox.

It’ll be free. It’ll be wood. And it’ll burn. If properly lit under mild wind conditions, there ought to be enough to set the delivery envelope ablaze. I suggest you put some paper and twigs around it if you want to kindle a bigger fire.

But first you’d better find an honest local woodsmen. And good luck with that.

Those guys don’t exactly grow on trees either.