There are a few reasons we haven’t turned on our furnace yet, even though we are in late October and, on brisk afternoons just warm enough to open the windows and let in the breeze, the smell of woodsmoke announces the arrival of fall just as surely as the smell of freshly mown grass in the spring tells us it is time to dig out of the closet all of spring’s most sacred treasures — baseball mitts and kites, golf clubs and picnic baskets, Hawaiian shirts and flip flops. Our furnace is generally regulated by smell. Each year, the scent of cut grass welcomes us to turn the furnace off, and the scent of burning wood warns us to turn it on.

So far, we are not listening, not this year. I gather you have seen the fuel prices of late? I can assure you that we are in no hurry to refill our oil tank, not when the price of a tank of fuel oil is higher than the value of my first three cars combined, not when heating our modest home for one month will cost us more than we spent on vacation last summer, not when heating it at that cost for three or four months may well force us to sacrifice next summer’s vacation, and perhaps the one after that.

I wasn’t always so big on vacations, but that was before having kids. Now, that week at the beach is something we count on, a light out there in distant August, shining dimly, but surely back to us in the darkness of January, when the cold, gray days last about 15 minutes and we can make it through another plate of fish-sticks only because we know they will be magically transformed into blue crab and Calabash shrimp come August.

No, we cannot, will not, give up our vacation for something as trivial as comfort, not bedraggled mom nor beleaguered dad, certainly not a 4-year-old who is more and more certain each year that we need to move to the beach, or at least buy a home there and stay half the time. I have to remind her that I am a teacher, which means if I am going to buy a second home, it is going to be made out of Lincoln Logs or Popsicle sticks. Too, the dean might not take kindly to my leaving classes in mid-semester to spend a few months at our beach home, even if it were made out of Popsicle sticks.

“Can’t you get a job teaching at the beach?” she says.

“Well, honey, teaching jobs don’t grow on trees,” I say.

“What do they grow on?”

“You would miss your friends,” I say, taking another tack.

“The beach has friends.”

Yes, the beach does have friends. We are all friends of the beach. That is why, when gas rose to $3.50 a gallon a few weeks ago, we simply parked our automobiles and refused to go anywhere unless it was absolutely necessary. Every trip, even ones requiring only a few miles, was subjected to the closest possible scrutiny, and finally a referendum. Did we really NEED to go to the grocery store? Didn’t a LOT of people eat Cheerios for dinner two nights in a row, after all, with or without milk? Hey, these Cheerios are pretty GOOD with warm tap water, aren’t they?

“But I’m TIRED of Cheerios, Dad.”

“Remember the flounder, honey. Remember the flounder.”

Nope, the furnace is staying off for awhile. We have stuffed our closets full of baseball mitts and kites, golf clubs and picnic baskets, Hawaiian shirts and flip flops, and pulled out every scrap of down and flannel we can find, every toboggan, every lined jacket, every hooded sweat shirt, every faux fur bedroom slipper, every item that has the word “thermal” on it someplace. We are winter-proofing our home the best we can, weather-stripping, improved insulation, you name it. Mainly, we are wearing more clothes, more hats. No, it isn’t easy operating the television remote with rabbit-fur lined gloves, but it can be done.

Next week, we will put up photograph of the sun rising over the beach, a small cluster of gulls just visible on the shore. The week after that, I will light our new scented candle, which cost almost exactly as much as one gallon of gas.

It is called, simply, “Grass.”

(Chris Cox is a writer and teacher who lives in Waynesville. He can be reached at jchriscox@prodigy.net.)