Category Archives: Life reflections

Put Another Log on the Fire – –

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Jack creeps in late again – his Wednesday guest post – – –

Little pot stove.

We have been using our recently installed small woodstove the last few days and it’s working beautifully. Our friend and neighbor Nate did a great job of getting it and the chimney in place, all according to best practice fire safety and local ordinances. (One should not necessarily be confused with the other….)

The only thing that still puzzles me is that the lighting procedure is upside down – you put the paper and kindling on top of the logs. Counter intuitive.

Using the wee stove reminds us of one of our favorite singers and one of his songs – Nic Jones and ‘The Little Pot Stove’ on his final album ‘Penguin Eggs’ (a quote from that song).

“In that little dark engine room where the cold seeps in your soul, how we huddled round that little pot stove, that burned oily rags and coal” The song is oddly pragmatic in its wording, and has reduced many an audience to tears with its sense of community. Beneath the simple survival techniques of these people in the biting winter isolation, is the sense that sitting together is part of what warms them. It’s a surprisingly beautiful song, one of Wendy’s all-time favorites. (She says it reminds her of camaraderie in the graduate student lounge at Memorial University in Newfoundland, where she did her PhD and summer was August 8-12.)

The song was written by Harry Robertson, a Scot who had emigrated to Australia and worked at the whaling station on South Georgia. The song mentions ‘Leith Harbour’, which is in Stromness Bay in S. Georgia. Wendy and I are very familiar with both Leith near Edinburgh and Stromness in Orkney.

Harry worked as an engineer on the engines of the whaling ships when they came into the harbor, and would take a small stove with him because the cold was so severe.

Nic changed ‘wee pot stove’ to ‘little pot stove’ but everything else is as Harry wrote it. The original LP by Nic didn’t credit Harry, but we’re pleased that that was corrected when it was released as a CD.

After Harry recorded his song, it was covered by another Scots emigre to Australia, Eric Bogle. I’m pretty sure that must be how it came to Nic and then – everywhere. It really is a catchy tune, and for those who have lived in places where huddling around a stove was part of the daily grind, well, it is quite meaningful.

Harry Robertson’s recording – http://www.harryrobertson.net/sound/WCM_Wee_Pot_Stove.mp3

Nic Jones’ recording – https://youtu.be/1FUzTQe72FU

PS – Nic was very seriously injured in a car crash shortly after a tour of Scottish folksong clubs and festivals. I spoke to him a number of times about his particular guitar tunings and playing style on these occasions and he was very willing to explain them to me. Although he can longer play guitar he sometimes sings with his son backing him.

Nic with son – https://youtu.be/saYFs2yRyBQ

The Monday Book: A STEP TOWARD FALLING by Cammie McGovern

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This is what’s known as a high-concept book. In other words, the premise that makes the plot unfold is a little bit complicated.

Belinda is a special needs girl getting ready to graduate high school. She has a fixation on Pride and Prejudice and a mild crush on a football player who dances with her at a BEST BUDDIES required event. (In other words, the football players have to go to a dance for special needs kids. Yeah, no worries there.)

Belinda winds up under the bleachers at a high school football game trying to see her crush, but meets someone else instead. And as that meeting goes very South, all the kids who see her, who see what’s happening, ignore it.

Which lands two of them in community service hours working with, yes, you guessed it, the special needs day program for adults. Where they get their lives handed to them in pieces as they realize what jerks they actually are. (Spoiler alert: there is redemption.)

A lot of the subtleties of the plot are driven by Emily, one of the two, being an academic nerd and Lucas, the other, being a football player. Cue the violins. The story is told from Emily and Belinda’s points of view in turns, and Emily spends a lot of time trying to unravel how stuck she is in stereotyping people.

The do-gooder pair wind up holding a play with scenes from PnP for the day care center, and that’s the culminating conflict of the book, which is more about exploring the shortcomings of policies for people like Belinda. The author is the founder of a non-profit for parents of special needs kids, and a lot of information comes out in the fiction.

Comes out well, I hasten to add. This is not a sermon cloaked in a story; it’s a story that delivers a good sermon. Belinda is a compelling character and her voice as a narrator is the best thing about this book. Emily and Lucas are interesting but a bit more predictable. The scene where Belinda walks away from Emily the first time she attempts an “apology” is wonderful. And the insights into a world too often hidden from view are meaningful. Thoroughly recommend this book, which provokes both laughter and thought.