Cooler weather makes me smile. Leaves turn, frost twinkles, sky blue, etc. etc. etc.. All good things. But I usually became truly happy when it got cold enough to fire up the space heaters in my plant, and you could smell the tamales across the yard.
This is not some flaky alternative fuel venture you haven’t heard of. Our space heaters were natural gas fired, cylindrical, about three feet high, with flat steel tops. If you took a minute with a cutting torch and a scrap of expanded metal, you had a personal grill that fit perfectly on top.
At one time we had over 25 languages spoken in the plant. Do you know how many really great-smelling foods that translates to? About half-an-hour before lunch, those foods started getting slapped down on the grills. Tamales, egg rolls, grilled meats wrapped in foil warmed perfectly over the flames. Because my job had me moving throughout the plant, I got to have a version of this conversation every ten minutes:
“Hey, you need to come taste the tamales my wife made!”
“(me laughing) Hey, aren’t you the guy that tried to get me to go out with you this summer? Didn’t you swear you weren’t married? And now she’s making you tamales…Shame on you.”
“Yeah…well….” And we’d grin at each other, and I’d call him something professional like a lyin’ dog, and go on my way after sampling the meal.
Last year, around Christmas, it was so insanely cold in the plant, that I made my way from heater to heater like oases. It was late afternoon. The welders were staying warm in insulated coveralls, crouching over the heat of their fresh welds. I smelled something festive and made for the one heater with a promising haze of smoke. A Laotian leadman had brought chestnuts and was roasting them over the fire. We burned our fingers shelling them, then digging the meats out with bits of wire.
Love those holiday traditions.
