ON GETTING TOO SERIOUS

My father always felt the cold when he was in our house, even when we had the heat up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. [Our house is a big old Victorian built in 1870 with no insulation in the walls and, before my father installed new insulated windows, had its original old wood-framed windows that leaked fresh air whether summer or winter!] Dad used to say he felt the cold because he grew up in a warm country and could never get used to New England weather, but then he never even considered moving to Fresno like so many other Armenians; instead, he insulated his house and heated it so that there was no chance of cold or 'drafts', which (I remember) were always a big problem for all the old folks from Marash. Did they believe that drafts brought evil spirits? Or simply that drafts made you sick, or that drafts could give you a stiff neck? Or was it the chill reminder of evil in the world . . . the evil they had survived . . . Whoops . . . At this point, my father would be telling me, "Bethel, you're getting too serious!"