January 5, 2025

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

Memories are triggered by sight, scent, hearing and other connections, brought by the angels or not. Consider woolen gloves and old-style radiators.

The house I live in now has those cast-iron heating units that, well, radiate comfort even after the boiler ends a cycle. From our youth, when the assurance of comfort is, it is hoped, a building block, the thought that a radiator will warm up the bedroom on a frosty morning is just right.

Or when the young jump into the snow, mittens or gloves covered with white and then placed on a radiator to dry, the scent of wool presenting a lifelong memory.

Even when older, if you still wear such gloves, and they get wet from pushing snow off the windshield and also have access to a hot radiator, well the deed is renewed.

I once had extra-long woolen gloves, a birthday gift decades ago and a style difficult to find today, and on assignment as a newspaper photographer at Town Hall in Stony Point, N.Y., during a snowstorm, I was thankful the historic building had steam radiators, good not only for the gloves but for leaning against to toast my my frozen legs.

Radiators are not so common today, replaced by baseboard convection, which, of course, does not offer drying space for woolen gloves. But such hand-wear is also not as common, pushed aside by synthetic designer jobs.

Yet, as life is, there are many other memory references from sight, scent, hearing – and the angels.

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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