Last night we were visiting with some friends who had recently moved from their rural Robson Valley home to the subdivision in McBride. As we talked, I noticed a newspaper on the table besides our host’s chair, so I asked him if they now subscribe to the Prince George newspaper.
He said he didn’t, but they often walk over to the gas station where they buy them.
“Do you have any old ones?’ I wondered.
“Yes, we have a whole pile that we were going to recycle. Do you want them?”
Do I want them? This time of year for us old newspapers are like gold. We use them daily to start the fire in our wood stove. Later on when it gets really cold, we keep the fire going 24-7 and don’t need them, but when it is just mildly cold we let the fire burn out over night so we have to light a new one every morning and for that we need newspapers.
Locally we have two newspapers, but they are very small in volume and only come out once a week, so we sometimes run out when we need them for a fire. We try to get old newspapers at the library, but often someone has beaten us to them. To find a new source of the things with our friends was a real godsend.
To re-enforce the importance of newspapers to us, last time we drove down to Indiana to visit relatives, I noticed a stack of old newspapers in my uncle’s shed, and I asked him for them. We hauled them all the way back 4000 km (2500miles) from Indiana.
I guess this all proves the old saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
You can view my paintings at: davidmarchant.ca
That is funny. I thought maybe you were going to read them and then use them to start fires. Beings that winter leaves you inside more. There might be a lot of things I would haul there from Indiana , but newspapers to start fires, probably nor. Some days , when the computer is acting up, fire starting is an option there as well.
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