Does anyone else out there remember hauling ashes from the coal furnace in the basement to the icy/snowy sidewalk in front of the house? This was the answer of the times, to help keep folks from slipping, sliding and falling. Those were the days of pulling galoshes over top of our shoes with snap buckles closing them. One weak buckle always broke leaving a gap. Ugh. I hated pulling those boots on but it had to be done.
The stocking cap my cousin Wilma knitted for me, gloves and scarves dried on radiators (still the best heat, I think) while we drank hot cocoa to warm up before going out into the snow to get cold and wet all over again. Snow ball fights and snow igloos were as much a part of the Christmas season as the tree, the gifts and memorizing a piece for Sunday school.
2 comments:
Hello Arlene - and I can remember watching from the kitchen window as the coal man set up the chutes on the back of his truck to send that coal into our basement - and before we put those ashes out, we made sure that there weren't any unburned pieces of coal that had fallen though the furnace grates that could be thrown out with the ashes.
And, that coal man was often my father who owned the local coal business and gave me a job of driving a coal truck when I turned 16. (So long ago!)
For a minute there I thought you were in my kitchen! I loved watching them set up the shute and the sound of the coal racing down into the coal bin.
Our local guy also had his two eldest sons working the business. The sons stepped into the business when, I think, their pop became ill.
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