Thursday, September 22, 2011

Long Way From Home

That's what most Canadians say when they walk around my van while I am laying down reading about Geology or playing the guitar.
"Where's it from?"
"Plate says New Hampshire."
Whistle
"Long way from home."
"I'll say."
"What's that up top?"
"Some kind of exhaust?"
"Must be."
"Not a smoke stack."
"Maybe."
"Stove pipe?"
"Looks like it."
Whistle.

Sometimes, if my back muscles are not throbbing in pain, I get up and introduce myself, give them a tour with my rehearsed, "Excuse the mess, I had to fire the maid." line followed by the story of the wood stove. Maybe they are too polite to argue but everyone has been blown away by it. They see it with their own eyes.
"You don't burn wood in there, do you?"
"Naw, it runs on coal."
After the laughter dies I point to a box of cut driftwood.
Whistle.

"Yep, I sort of wanted to see if it could be done and also I really needed a primitive way to heat the van. So this solved both."

"Marge, come look at this. B'ye here installed a wood stove in he van."
"You don't say. Ooooh. Look at that. We'll lard, Jesus."

It happens at least twice a day.

"Where ya from, b'ye?"
"Well, the van is registered in New Hampshire, so that's where I say I'm from. Truth be told, I have no home."

"Looks cozy enough, eh?"

"It's adequate."

And they nod in amazement and walk away. I return to my book or guitar. Speaking of which, I've got some music to play tonight. I'm in Cape Breton Island music country!
Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.