Most winter evenings we spent in the living room.   It was the warmest room in the house.

After Daddy was done milking the cows, we would all sit and listen to the radio.   Daddy liked to listen to detective stories on the radio.   He always let me listen to the Lone Ranger show.   I liked that one best.  

Sometimes Momma made popcorn.   We liked to eat it in a bowl with milk on it.   (I know, that sounds yucky, but everyone in our family ate popcorn that way.)

Daddy had a big pan of hickory nuts in his lap.   He had a flat-sided rock and a hammer.   He would lay the hickory nut on the rock, smack it with the hammer and pick out the nutmeats and put them in a jar.   Momma used the nutmeats for baking and for cookies and sometimes sprinkled them on top of cake frosting.

My bedroom was so cold that many winter mornings I would wake up to find the binding on my blanket frozen from my breath.   Momma always heated up a warm rubber water bottle and put it in my bed before I went to bed.   It kept my feet warm for a few hours, but in the morning, it was very cold.

At night, as Momma tucked me in, she'd say, "Get your little furnace generating heat and soon you will be warm and toasty."

She laid my clohtes for the next day, out on a chair by my bed.   In the morning, I'd reach out very carefully so as not to let any cold air get under my covers, and pull my clothes into bed with me.   When they started to get warm, I'd get out of my pajamas and put my clothes on under the covers.   Then I'd get out of bed, and run as fast as I could down the stairs and into the living room where it was warm.