Wool Blankets and Me

I sleep with the windows open when weather permits. During the summer it's often just a matter of ventilation. But now you can feel in the air that fall is not far off: it got down almost to 50° last night. And so I'm back once again to using a wool blanket.

Actually, I'll use a wool blanket in the middle of the summer if I can get away with it. I have a thing about wool blankets. The wool blanket on my bed is a Hudson Bay point blanket, big white blanket with colored stripes, green, red, yellow, and dark indigo blue. And those little point-marks on the edge of the blanket. I've had it for years, it's somewhat worn but still serviceable. Got it back in the early 90s, back when I was generally still in my spartan ascetic mode of life, you know, little 12" B&W TV, furniture from St. Vincent's. But I did have a top-of-the-line wool blanket. Hudson Bay! Very warm on a cold winter night. Or, like I say, in the middle of the summer if I can get away with it.

On my couch I have a lighter grey wool blanket, picked it up at some Army surplus store. In the wintertime I break out a second wool blanket for my bed, a much thicker grey wool Army blanket, red stripe near either end with a white cross sewn into the red stripe. Add my quilt on top of two wool blankets, and I am pretty well set for the coldest of winter nights.

I don't know what it is about wool blankets and me. Somehow, no other kind of blanket feels like a "real" blanket to me. Yes, as you might guess, I had a special blanket as a kid; but it was not wool: yellow, and much worn, and I wish I knew where it went to.

In the meanwhile, far as I'm concerned there's nothing to beat a genuine wool blanket. In the cold of winter. Or, if I can get away with it, in the summertime.