Every man has his breaking point, his line in the sand.
I just found mine.
I wish it was over some grand ideal – freedom, democracy, the pride of our nation — but it’s not.
It’s about my fireplace.
Over my dead body will someone stop me from using it.
I mean it.
A report on CBS Radio on Tuesday put me over the edge. The American Lung Association issued a news release that day cautioning Americans about the use of wood burning fireplaces and wood-burning stoves. Apparently they give off smoke.
The news release itself wasn’t bad — a friendly reminder not to burn poisonous plastics, to ventilate properly, and to wash behind your ears in the bathtub — but the radio story made me numb.
It was the voices of those interviewed. I’ve heard them before. They are the ones who made cigarettes cost $14 a pack in New York City; who cruelly mandated low-flush toilets, and took away the salt shakers at high-end restaurants (why did the pepper have to go, too?)
I hate those voices.
As usual, they were serious. Fireplaces, it seems, have become — here’s the killer line — “a public health hazard.” And once something becomes “a public health hazard”, look out. Your right to do it just went up in smoke.
The CBS radio report confirmed that: Some towns, according the story, have begun banning the use of wood-burning fireplaces. And if some have, more will under pressure from them. When the self-ordained public health police get an idea in their heads, they march on legislatures like creatures in Dawn of the Dead. They never stop.
They can’t have my fireplace, though. Not while I’m alive. I’ll barricade myself inside and burn every log, stick of furniture, and floor board in my house before they get me. And it will be worth it.
It may not be the noblest cause, but it’s my line in the sand.
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