Bang, Clang, Hiss!

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • March 6, 2023

I grew up, quite literally, with hot water radiators in a Colonial Revival from the 1920s. 


There was a huge boiler in the basement that chugged and blew hot belching air. It took up one whole area of the basement and I avoided it. I could hang over on the stairs and stare at its flames at the bottom. It scared me. It not only kept the basement very warm but also very dry. While the house had been built in an area that began to slope at our property, between the furnace and the clever drainage system installed by the builders of the house in the 1920s, our basement was always dry. My mother, the queen of rebates (this is the 1970s and 1980s), had her “rebate and coupon table” right in front of this furnace. I remember it always glowed – and I would not doubt that it still had some asbestos around some of its pipes. Maybe another reason I stayed away – perhaps I was warned away at an early age not just because I could burn myself!


One of my fondest memories of this house was the clang and hiss of the heaters in the winter.  It made me feel instantly cozy, as if I was wrapped in a nice warm quilt. If I was in bed at night and it was snowing, all the more warmth and cozy feeling. It was comforting and a sound and feel I still associate with snow and winter. The street light and the snow falling, spiraling down in that pinkish gold of the light – and the hoped for snow day to come! 


Forced air systems just don’t do the same thing. And, they suck all the moisture out of the house to boot! They do keep a house quite warm though – but still not the same – and I miss that humidity as do my plants. I reflect back on the hot water radiators – those old cast iron loopy radiators with the valve and perhaps a radiator box to cover them – as it if they kept me super warm. They didn’t. We kept our house at 63F – a lesson I still follow – and it was a big old Colonial-style house so it could be drafty. One reason we had a Franklin stove in our family room and quilts for nighttime television watching! 


So many times over the course of a winter, I think of that house where I spent about twenty years of my life, and remember the, “Bang, Clang, Hiss!” of the radiators and the coziness they projected. And while, it wasn’t always warm, it was a lot warmer that the Mitchell House would have been in February!


JNLF

Recent Posts

Corn Niblets

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • January 12, 2026
I wrote this several years ago and have re-blogged it but the juncos are so adorable – little puffball corn niblets. And they are ubiquitous during New England winters. We all know I am not an ornithologist. I would liken myself to a very amateur birder. While I worked a great deal with my friend and mentor, Edith Andrews, over the years, particularly on her book, I still am TERRIBLE at shorebirds and warblers. Even harriers and hawks. I grew up watching birds – my parents are birders. My Dad had a primo seat at the bird venue in his study – close to the feeders and the hummingbird feeder right outside the shop keeper’s style window of his study. But (as I tend to do), I digress. What are corn niblets and birds doing in the same blog you wonder? Well, that’s what I think of when I see Dark-eyed Juncos. Their beaks remind me of a piece of a corn kernel – and thus the niblets term. Believe it or not, I had never really seen – or maybe noticed – a Junco until I was in my early 20s and my husband and I were living outside Washington, DC where he was an officer stationed with the US Coast Guard. We had a large second story deck and I was feeding the birds. It was November or December and all these little birds with white-greyish breasts and black backs with little beaks showed up. I called my Mom who said, “That’s’ a Junco!’ And probably also then thought, “Duh.” If you haven’t seen a Junco, they’re absolutely adorable and a harbinger of cold weather around these parts. Last year, I never seemed to glimpse one at all. We seem to have waves from year to year where we have a lot or they are few and far between. But in any case, I was rather excited to see one under my feeder the other day. I went back to look in my bird list and realized I never saw one in 2020 nor in 2021! Now, identification books state they have a pink-ish beak but I always see them more as a yellowy color – maybe it’s my eyes – but it’s really the size that reminds me of a kernel of corn! But take a look and let me know what you think. JNLF

PEACE

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • January 5, 2026
As Walt Whitman once wrote, “Peace is always beautiful.” Peace can mean many different things. I have used this Whitman quote above before – my Father loved Whitman. And when I quote Whitman, it makes me feel like my Father is here. Maria and her father, William, were close. In fact, even with a large family of twelve people, the Mitchells were all close. My family is close as well, though we have our moments as most, if not all, families do. As we bring to a close another difficult year in which the world and its people continue to struggle, take a moment to be thankful and to find and give peace. May you always find peace in yourself and peace with others. May our world become more peaceful and may we all learn that this small space we inhabit is shared and meant for everyone. In the echoes of one of my favorite Maria Mitchell quotes, your small step, your small gesture to another or towards helping something happen, can make a difference – more than you think. I’ll end with another quote – and a poem I have used the last few years – that is fitting and that also reminds me of another Whitman poem. JNLF In Memoriam, [Ring out, wild bells] Alfred, Lord Tennyson - 1809-1892  Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Keep Calm and Bird On: January 2026

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“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews
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