PICAYUNE —
That week had begun with a pre-dawn call from our daughter that their Lab Piper was on her last legs, and could I come get her to the vet. I got to her house quickly, but it was still too late. That week ended just as spectacularly.
I got home before Betsy, poured a glass of cranberry juice (purported to be good for what ails me), picked up the evening paper, and headed for the den recliner. It was a mite airish, and with this rerun of malaria I’ve been a little cold-natured for more than a month anyway, so I lit the gas logs in the den fireplace.
This is a confession, but I got old a year ago last December. I realized that I was doing my broke back no favor atall to be out cutting, splitting, stacking, then hauling daily to the den fireplace my own firewood. The next day, there was an ad in the paper by my gas company that they were having a sale on gas logs. Was that perfect timing, or what? I went to Scott Gas, picked out my logs, and they came to install them the very next day. I had years ago gotten gas logs for the bedroom and living room fireplaces, so I was familiar with their advantages.
No mo’ chain saws or axes required. Just turn a dial.
Over a lifetime of enjoying wood-burning fireplaces has also given me a deep appreciation for another advantage of gas logs — no creosote build-up, so no mo’ chimney fires! We’ve experienced probably four or five here at our house over the years, and they will scare the p-wadding out of you!
Therefore it was with total confidence (and total ignorance, turns out) that I cut on the gas logs to warm up the den that Friday evening while I settled into my recliner to read the news.
At first, I thought the roaring sound was a tractor going by on the road out front. Only when I realized that the den was shaking did I catch onto what was happening — even then, I didn’t really believe it until I ran through the living room onto the front porch, from which I could see dirty brown smoke and flames emanating from the den chimney around the corner.
I sprinted back into the house, cut off the fire, and slammed the fireplace damper shut, cutting off the air flow to the roaring fire in the triple-pipe insulated chimney — I have those recirculating fireplaces — another advantage of gas logs over wood: one cannot shut the damper on a wood-burning fireplace without filling the house with smoke. I ran for the back door, grabbing an old leather jacket and cap off the porch, and quickly screwed the high-pressure nozzle onto the garden hose, then cut on the faucet and headed up the ladder which still stood against the den roof, from some roof maintenance I did last summer. From the top of the ladder, I could aim the stream of water up into the bottom of the chimney cap, from whence water could drop back down the chimney and put the fire out.
The wind was blowing about 25 knots from the west. The den is on the east side of the house. About 50 percent of the spray was coming back on me, but the flames had at least gone out after the first 15 or 20 minutes, though the smoke was still pouring out. Had the blow-torch-like temperature of the chimney set fire to the wood around it? I hooked the hose nozzle onto the top of the ladder and descended to run in and check the den. Betsy was still not home. No visible fire inside yet.
Back outside, up the ladder, spraying me and the chimney cap — this went on until my spouse got home and tapped on the den door, thinking I was playing games. But now I had someone to scream at: check the upstairs, hold the damper closed, how’s the water level in the fireplace? It was an exciting two hours!
Listen: this may be the only valuable piece of advice you ever get from Neill. If YOU replace a wood-burning fireplace with gas logs, do NOT fail to clean the chimney of any accumulated creosote from the past year or so before you light a gas log fire and relax with the paper in the afternoon.
I’m tired of people saying, “I never heard of that happening to anyone else!”
Opinion
New electric logs? Clean chimney!
- Opinion
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Hood’s ‘open carry’ ruling strikes important balances
Attorney General Jim Hood’s office issued an opinion this week that went a long way toward establishing some order and applying some common sense to what has become a contentious and confusing debate both for proponents and opponents of free exercise of the Second Amendment.
House Bill 2, which becomes law July 1, was authored and led to passage by state Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton. Gipson has told the press that he believed the legislation was necessary to clearly define what a concealed weapon is under the law and to distinguish between “concealed carry” and “open carry” rights. But many law enforcement officers charged with enforcing the state’s “concealed carry” law and other contradictory statutes, the bill created some confusion and Hood’s AG opinion brought some clarity to the ongoing debate. -
Analysis: Miss. supes discussing county budgets
Mississippi supervisors gather on the Gulf Coast this week to talk about roads and bridges, economic development, water resources and other issues.
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The Loss of Trust
Amid all the heated cross-currents of debate about the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance program, there is a growing distrust of the Obama administration that makes weighing the costs and benefits of the NSA program itself hard to assess. The belated recognition of this administration’s contempt for the truth, for the American people and for the Constitution of the United States, has been long overdue.
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Mary Dorsa Guttry
Mass of Christian Burial for Mary Dorsa Guttry, 90, of Carriere, Miss., who passed away Friday, June 14, 2013, will be held Wednesday, June 19, 2013, at 2 p.m. at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church.
Visitation will be Wednesday, June 19, 2013 from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. at McDonald Funeral Home.
Burial will be in New Palestine Cemetery under the direction of McDonald Funeral Home. -
We all need to be prepared for disasters
When my father was alive, he left New Orleans only two times in his life. The first was to serve his country in Korea. The second was when the federal government evacuated him to San Antonio in 2005.
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How much spying needed for security?
Ever since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Americans have vacillated between their desire for safety and their desire for privacy.
The federal government, whose spying on its own citizens has been further exposed this past week, says Americans can’t have it both ways. -
State lags in early child ed
The bad news is that Mississippi remains the only state in the South without a state-funded early children education program. Only eight states nationwide do not invest in some form of early childhood education and only 11 states don’t have a state-funded pre-kindergarten program.
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A hard rain is gonna fall...
By Kathryn Jean Lopez/Syndicated columnist
After disappearing during his term in office and bringing scandal to his family and state, former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford is going to Washington, having won election to Congress. And that’s far from the worst story reflecting the current character of our nation.
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Not your mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal
By Rheta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist
I haven’t seen the Ladies’ Home Journal in about a million years, except maybe in the dentist’s office when I was trying to avoid a television permanently set on Fox News.
Somebody’s grandchild was selling magazines for a school project, and Ladies’ Home Journal was the only one on the list I recognized. Now it comes to the house.
Let’s just say: It’s not my mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal. This month, right behind a feature called “A Country of People Who Never Stop Eating” is one called “Nice Girls Do Get Tattoos.” -
Health care market needs oversight
By Gene Lyons/Syndicated columnist
Sometimes the best journalism explains what’s right under our noses. In Steven Brill’s exhaustive Time magazine cover article, “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us,” it’s the staggeringly expensive, grotesquely inefficient and inhumane way Americans pay for medical care.
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