One thing I remember from those years was how my father would always crank up the central furnace whenever he’d get back from his hunting excursions in the 200 acre forest behind our house.
I am not a fan of hunting and will never be found standing in a treestand with a gun or archery bow in my hands. Despite this, my father is an avid hunter and goes out on the weekends every year when hunting season rolls around. It’s his favorite activity for numerous months out of the year, even if he doesn’t need the meat for any reason. I have my own personal feelings about this, although I don’t mention them to my father. He’s going to keep doing what he enjoys, regardless of my ethical or moral qualms. I can’t complain completely, because there were a few winters when I was a child where we benefited greatly from the additional meat. For much of my childhood we were on the cusp of being lower middle class, however for a few dire years when I was seriously young, we were terrible by all counts. And because my father’s hunting supplemented our food stores while in those years, I can only get minimally anxious by my dad’s continued interest in hunting. One thing I remember from those years was how my father would always crank up the central furnace whenever he’d get back from his hunting excursions in the 200 acre forest behind our house. He would be standing still in snowy weather for hours at a time and would be frosty to his core when he’d return. I enjoyed feeling the warmth from the furnace running warm upon his return. All of us were using a gas furnace at the time, however we also had a wood stove in the dining room that was burning firewood throughout the day and evening.