I live in a small Cape Cod on Long Island. On the wall of the living room was a thermostat for heat from the late 1940s - it was from ESSO (Standard Oil of Ohio) and out of the Rockefeller oil millions. ESSO delivered oil to the the original home owner, Mr. Stellwagen. It worked like a champ. You diddled a small wheel up top to put the heat up or down - you were in complete control. We updated the heat with new equipment for thousands of dollars and the thermostat still worked like a young beast into the 21st century. Oh, the joy!

Happy and warm we get a thermostat with lights and a computer chip in it. It's "programmble". It worked for a week or two.

You guessed it - it goes flaky, fuggy, and beeps to do nothing when you try to set something while your old ass gets chilled or fried.

Folks from a generation or two ago knew how to make something that worked. We have lost that as Americans.

Ever seen those bathroom heaters in old houses? Gas flame stuck in a wall like a sconce with some protective metal around and a bakelite knob to turn it on or off. The one in our house says Day ~ Night, but I have seen some with a swastika. Apparently the Germans were supplying the world with these knobs from '33 to the war. Weird.

The Germans could always build good stuff.

At the downstairs saloon I have a gas heater that Mr. Stellwagen left me in 1978. It is cast iron and a hundred years old. You have to turn on the gas and lay in a long match to set it alight. Once you get by the "Fwoomph" you have to manipulate the flame off of blue to near as clear yellow as you can get it. The iron will glow almost red after a while. That thing will warm the cockles of your heart and shorts but the worry is carbon monixide.

I have the andirons that go with it and the thought that it could go for some serious dollars to a collector or a gas-heat freak. The thing is "cherry" (you can't hurt cast iron without a sledge hammer).