Lately I have been receiving email offers from a website that advertises the use of brain games to keep seniors’ grey matter active and supple.  Much like crossword puzzles are supposed to do.

The website advertises “a training program to challenge memory, attention, and more.”  Originally developed as meditation techniques for stress reduction, it reportedly has been found to also be valuable as cognitive therapy.

The ads became intense during December, appearing in my email box 3 or 4 times a week and finally offering me 15% off the enrollment price.  I have never bought a game on the internet, but I clicked on the button, curious to see how much it might cost for me to rejuvenate my brain. Who can say what that would be worth? Nevertheless, I declined their offer which subsequently expired on December 31.

Late in January, the ads/pleas began to appear again. This time the offer was 25% off for enrolling. In urgent tones I was warned again that this discount would not be around forever.

My question is this: Don’t they remember that I declined their 15% offer? Have they forgotten? Might they also benefit from the games that are supposed to enhance their thinking processes so that their brains are operating at full capacity?

If they can’t remember something that happened only two months ago, perhaps I will invoke the old adage: Physician, heal thyself.

Once, as a first grader, my youngest son asked me, “Did you have to take a piece of firewood to school during the winter?” I explained that I did not attend the Little Schoolhouse on the Prairie.

My ‘grade’ school had a boiler deep in the basement of the building where only the boys in class were sent to fetch the janitor. (Fine by me!) That boiler, fueled by I-don’t-know-what, provided heat to radiators in each classroom very efficiently and reliably.

At home our house was warmed with gas space heaters with clay covers over the open flames. These did a very good job of keeping a room toasty.

Later came the floor furnace, a burn hazard for toddlers. And eventually it became financially possible for most homes to have central heat, a furnace that put warm air evenly throughout the whole house.

Thermostats had always been available for furnaces. Early on, people needed to control the temperature in mills and factories so the mercury thermostat was invented way back in the 1600s.

Somewhere along the way it was discovered that electricity worked well and was safer so that is what is used now. The temperature in our houses are even throughout each room. We can program changes into our thermostat so the heat (or air) adjusts itself without our giving it another thought.

And this is nice, but when there is a power outage it isn’t just the total electric homes affected, virtually everyone is without heat. Because with no electric power to the thermostat, there is no way to turn on a gas furnace.

And I guess I’m here to ask, Why Not? Why is there not a mechanical starter on a gas furnace? If there were, then during a power outage the emergencies would be lessened because those with gas furnaces would have heat in their houses. Fewer people would be in a crisis situation.

Wouldn’t that be a good thing?