It is one of those little mysteries in life that we will never be able to solve. We use only one open fireplace to heat our house. Yes, the rest of the house is freezing – but that’s a different story! In any event, we’ve discovered that the only way to keep at least one room in the house warm – which happens to be the room we use for everything including writing – is to use coal. A lot of coal. We order it every week. All we have to say to get our rough collie Angel Joy to growl and say “Woof” is to tell her, “Andy’s bringing more coal.” For some reason, the huge friendly man lugging huge bags of coal across his shoulder frightens her. But that’s another story. Back to the mystery. The tongs we used to put coal in the fire disappeared. How could a large pair of metal tongs simply…vanish? I would say it might be a case of Brigadoon and they had been Brigadoonized. But we’re still here. Only the tongs are gone. We did find one tip of what looked like tongs in the fireplace when we were cleaning it out. But how did the tongs get there and why would the fire have burned the thickest part of the tongs and left only one little end piece? They were metal, for heaven’s sake! In any event, they were borrowed, stolen, Brigadoonized, or burned or…it’s a mystery!

So…out to buy more tongs. But the first and only pair we could find were labeled, “Not for use. For decoration only.” Talk about mysteries! Now I ask you: how many homes do you enter and the person says, “Oh, before you see the rest of the house, you must come see my tongs! We hung them up on the wall here in the center of the room so everyone could see them. Aren’t they cool?”

Remember, I’m from Bandera, Texas, “Cowboy Capital of the World.” We decorate everything from our homes to our businesses with Texas Flags painted on barnwood, metal…anything that sits still long enough to take paint…and with old saddles, rattlesnake rattlers, sets of horns off Texas Longhorns, barbed wire, stuffed roadrunners and armadillos, branding irons. Really cool stuff. But fireplace tongs? Get real!

Anyway, the mystery remains and I can’t complain. I love mysteries! If I didn’t love mysteries, I could never have written Bridge to Nowhere, released by Sunpenny Publishing. Nor could I have written the three older mystery-romance-suspense books available on Amazon: Heart Shadows, Until the Shadows Flee and Shadow Chase.

So…I hope you’re in the mood for a good mystery and you’ll buy one of my books. If I sell enough, we might consider another heat source besides just the fireplace. As for me, I’m on the way out the door to get a pair of those “for decoration only” tongs. I figure it must be a trend in the making!