Article and photos by Rob Bettaso

Some days begin poorly but end well. A recent example involves my finicky furnace, which was old and unreliable when I bought my house back in 2005. The “beast” (the name I gave it early on) burns natural gas, which it blows noisily and inefficiently through portions of the house using an electrically powered fan. Despite the fact that I ritualistically lower the beast’s thermostat to 60 degrees Fahrenheit for my sleeping hours, it nonetheless frequently roars to life throughout our cold winter nights. Because I typically fall into a dead sleep for the first five hours of the night, I am usually not troubled by its machinations, but by 3:00 to 4:00 a.m. (when my deep sleep is replaced by REM sleep) the beast’s bellowing will often disrupt my slumbers.

The rumbling of the beast and its inefficient distribution of heat are not its only faults. No, the beast also has the occasional habit of having its pilot light mysteriously extinguish at some point in the night. Naturally, when the pilot goes out, there is no way for the gas to be ignited, and the beast lays dormant through whatever remains of the night – while the house steadily gets colder and colder. Then, when I awake around 5:00 a.m. (often fully rested, since my sleep had not been interrupted by the beast’s nocturnal fury) I have to spring from beneath the warmth of my heavy blankets and make a mad dash to the main room so that I can open the furnace grates, reignite the pilot, and re-start the beast so that frostbite doesn’t set in before I make the morning’s coffee.

Various HVAC technicians have attempted to fix the beast over the years (replacing the thermo-coupler a few times and tinkering with fuel-jets and the wiring on other visits) but to no avail. So, I live with the problem; primarily since the beast works most of the time, I am reluctant to replace it (keep in mind that I’m a former Peace Corps volunteer and I long ago learned to live in the face of discomfort).

So, back to that recent day that I alluded to earlier; the day that had begun poorly. When I awoke, it was obvious that the pilot had gone out during the night, and soon I saw that the temperature in the kitchen was a brisk 50 degrees Fahrenheit. After re-starting the beast and making my morning coffee, I retired to my den and fired-up another heat source I have there: a pot-bellied stove that also runs on natural gas and which really only effectively heats the immediate area around it. There, while sitting in an old rocking chair and drinking my coffee, I opened and read through the previous day’s mail (mostly junk, but also including a few bills, which I still pay the old-fashioned way with a check). It was then that I realized that my day was off to a bad start. Yes, two of the bills were delinquent: one to a local utility company, the other to my dentist. In both cases, I would need to jump on the situation before things worsened.

After my coffee, I decided I would warm up faster and also burn off some frustration if, instead of rocking by the pot-belly, I set off into the dark morning and hiked up a steep hill along a dirt road near my house. Given our recent rains and snows, I knew the route would be a mess, so I wore my mud-boots. Because I felt so good when I returned from my vigorous hill-walk, I kept the hike going and made several turns through the hood in what was now a brightening day. I returned home much warmer and a tad happier.

After breakfast, I gave the dentist’s office a call. I have only been going to this particular dentist, over in the town of Taylor, for a couple of years; but I have very much been impressed by everybody in the office (clerical staff, hygienists, and the dentist). They have always been friendly, supremely skilled, and very efficient. I explained to the staffer who had answered the phone that I had paid my dental bill at the time of my last visit and I was confused why I was now receiving a bill with a balance of $500 due. She astutely realized that the discrepancy was likely one stemming from my insurance coverage and transferred me to the person who serves as the expert go-between for patients and their insurance companies. Reassuringly, that person (Elaine) said that she would see what she could do and would call me later in the day to offer an update. Mission partially accomplished, I decided I would next go to the utility company to address that dilemma face-to-face, since I hoped the personal touch would help. Sure enough, I was met there by a most helpful billing clerk who resolved the issue quickly and satisfactorily.

With my mood continuing on its upward trajectory, I ran several errands before finally making a stop at the library to return a DVD (I had been on a John Huston kick lately and was returning The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) and a book (I was also on a Gothic Horror kick and was returning Bram Stoker’s Dracula). After checking emails on one of the libraries’ computers (much of my home-technology still resides in the mid-20th Century) I picked out a few more DVDs (including another Huston: the Misfits) and some more horror (R. L. Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde) and headed home. As is often the case, I couldn’t resist pulling into the parking lot near a local duck pond and hiking to the pond and then up and around a local creek (before leaving home I had tossed my mud boots into the bed of my truck, as I had suspected that I might do another local jaunt).

Once home, I had a late lunch and took a long nap, from which I awoke rejuvenated. After reading for a while, I headed out for an end-of-day walk. I made my way along our local quiet streets and on over to a local park, where, since I was now wearing decent hiking boots, I stayed on a paved path. The first half-lap around the park was serene. On the second half, I had to take a detour as I had noticed up in the distance a person I had seen before, walking her cranky old Rottweiler and, since said dog had given me a menacing growl on a previous encounter, I left the path and walked far around the formidable hound. Over the past several weeks I had seen other folks forced to do the same thing as most of us have realized that the elderly person who walks the Rottie just doesn’t look like she has the strength to restrain the dog should he decide to make a lunge for somebody’s thigh. I can certainly think of several ways I would rather go than by bleeding-out in the park after having my femoral artery ripped open by sharp teeth. I hasten to add that this particular Rottie is an outlier, as there are many folks who walk their dogs along the path and, invariably, the other dogs are friendly fellows who generally just want to frolic.

As I hiked the last portion of the trail before leaving the park to return home, I came across a relatively new friend named David. He was playing with his dog (Oscar), and while David and I took turns throwing a stick to amuse Oscar; we caught up on the latest haps. David is a former teacher and has an educator’s broad knowledge of the world around us. He knows I’m a bird-watcher, so asked me what I had seen on my stroll. I listed several species, stopping at one point to make the sound of a killdeer I had spooked up from the ground while on my walk. As I made the plaintive killdeer call, David took on a far-away look and eventually sighed and said the call of a killdeer always reminded him of his boyhood days growing up in Colorado. We looked at each other briefly and knew that we now shared a new and wordless bond.

But dusk was approaching, so soon I took my leave and headed back through the neighborhoods to my home. There, I was greeted by a phone message from the dentist’s office telling me that the billing issue had been sorted out and the result was in my favor. As it was now dark and the dentist’s office would be closed, I would have to wait until tomorrow to return the call and thank Elaine profusely for being such a kind and diligent advocate on her patient’s behalf.



The day wound down with dinner, a flick, and a couple of chapters of Stevenson read while in bed. I was just beginning to fall asleep when the furnace kicked-in and nudged me back into semi-consciousness. But I was very tired, and I soon fell into such a deep sleep that the racket of the furnace didn’t faze me again until about five in the morning; when I awoke happy knowing that in a few hours I was meeting a friend to go cross-country skiing up in the high country. And on that particular day, both its beginning and its ending were very pleasant indeed.