Friday, May 26, 2006
ASHES TO ASHES
When I was typing about my youth spent stoking coal fires I forgot the part about the ashes!
I had to shovel them out and take them 'out back'.
There was a hill behind the house and the ashes had been infilled from the actual hill slope for many years. That made a sort of extension of the hill on which little grew but, since there were pine trees nearby, the ashes were covered by pine needles. Camouflage.
The furnace ashes still had coal pieces in them and so we screened those before dumping. The unburned coal pieces that had fallen through the grate were put into the scuttle for the jack stove that heated the water.
I didn't have a very difficult childhood, but I don't like to let the Dickenesque parts slip by. Milk them.
Did I tell you that I had to walk to school?
