Larry and Rene had no children; they lived in one of the smallest homes I’d ever seen.
Entering the only door, directly across the room’s interior, was Rene’s sewing table and a stand lamp. One light bulb in the tiny kitchen’s ceiling, one window behind the small sofa. Cast iron woodstove, that did double duty, Rene cooked on it and it heated the home’s interior.
Larry never worked a day in his life for anyone else, but he worked every day of his life either putting up firewood for his 300 customers or making charcoal, and he sold mountains of it. He only used oak.
About as quiet a man as you ever met, and when he was making charcoal, the yard’s fragrance was hard to beat. Many times stepping out of my truck in his yard, the aroma of that oak charcoal, made me hungry. Rene would take notice, and you would have a sandwich in hand in no time.
We’d stack firewood in his pickup box, and the one axle trailer he had for deliveries, every so often, Larry would take a look at the smoke emitting from the charcoal building. Sometimes he’d up the fire, sometimes he left things well enough alone; he knew what he was doing.
- The Trout Whisperer
