Rusty, black, and functional, it dared me to move it out.
The Ashley Model 25HFR wasn’t going anywhere, however, because the landlord came and decided not to replace it. That’s the way it is with wood stoves these days, fix ‘em if you can, or else take out a second mortgage. Anyway, the monster is a classic. This was one of the original back-to-the-land stoves, a mighty heater when it’s loaded up, and downright dangerous on piñon. It sits in a corner of the room we called the “saloon” because it has a six-foot mahogany bar and a couple of old shotguns leaning against the wall.
About two years ago I tried to tighten a loose nut on the door latch and the damned thing broke. Just shattered, basically, into bits of mystery metal, leaving me no way to shut the heavy cast-iron door. I was resourceful, though, and cold. The combination produced a 12-inch section of a heavy wooden dowel with a groove cut into one end that matched the bottom edge of the aforementioned door. If I positioned this just so, I could jam it up and in a little, and the door would almost always stay in place. This worked just fine, even with the occasional accident or two, until my wife moved back:
“If we spend another winter in this house, I want a new stove!”
At least she didn’t say, if we “have to” spend another winter here. Well, maybe she did. I tend to gloss. At any rate, cold weather is coming on, and the Ashley still sits crookedly in the corner. What happened was that our landlord did agree to put in a new stovepipe and damper and see about getting the door fixed. I had no hope of the latter, and then the landlord had half a kidney removed. The upshot was that I gave up on waiting for someone else to do it and just put new pipe in myself, deducting parts and labor from the rent. The door, however, was another story, and this was serious.
When I had my hernia repair operation last March, my honey had to learn to chop wood and tend the Ashley all by herself. Women have been doing this for centuries, so I wasn’t worried. But the stick-against-the-door trick was pushing it. it required patience and cunning, plus the requisite amount of brute force, and this operation had to be completed every time she looked inside the stove. it was second nature with me: eyeball, prop, shove door a little to the left, bang on stick with palm of hand. Child’s play, but my sweetie likes things that work. i lay on the sofa, writhing in pain, barely patient enough to give directions without getting shot. After 10 minutes of cursing and fumbling, she finally got it shut, but asked why the fire had gone out. I told her she needed to open the door, poke long pieces of carefully folded newspaper in between the logs, and try again. Oh, and fiddle with the draft.
“You want me to OPEN this thing now?”
“Yes, that’s how we do this. You have to always look inside and mess with stuff. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. OWWW!!!”
Fortunately, it was an early spring.
Meanwhile, back in the present, our landlord finally came home and apologized for not calling his “chimney guy” to fix the stove. I told him I’d already taken care of everything except the latch. At least we were all on the same page here. A few days later, the chimney guy — or was it the wood guy? — finally showed up to look at the stove door. The thing is, he was more than that. It turns out he’s a santero, a sculptor who carves santos, bultos, and retablos for churches and collectors. He’s also an expert welder and a genius of a craftsman.
After simply eyeballing the old stove door and where the latch had used to fasten, he came back a few days later with a hand-welded “latch” made out of a piece of threaded half-inch steel, some nuts and heavy washers, and an old tin doorknob. He’d ground down the weld joints so the metal tapered from shaft to nut, and the thing was simply beautiful. Besides that, it worked.
I’m appropriately stunned. Now we have an Ashley with a doorknob, and the stove door doesn’t even wiggle. You still have to eyeball the position of the cam, lift the door a little big, and turn the knob just so… Oh, and when the stove is hot, you have to watch out for that knob.
The wife’s still here. Cross your fingers.
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Ashley with a doornob. That’s why I love it here.
It looks kinda weird, actually. I’m sitting next to it now (no fire). But it works. Heh.