There is a list member who remembers .......... me!
I fondly remember the coal fired furnace in the cellar of our house. Shake the grates and poke out the chinkers lodged between the grate spaces with the right angled rod before breakfast, three shovels in the morning, same in the evening, add water to the thingy in the front of the furnace, and every weekend, clean out the ash bin and cart the residue out to the back yard and dump in the hole. Occasionally, when we were putting in a cement walkway, we would go down and collect the residue and use it as a base for the walkway..... it had great drainage.
I remember having the fire get too vigorous even after damping down and throwing a can of water on it......I still wish that I had not done that! The steam and the soot came out faster than the water went in: thankfully I was not directly in the way or I would have been seriously scalded. As it was, the cellar was covered in a very fine dust!
I also remember a few evenings when my mother was having her women's club. My dad and I would go down to the cellar and cut up rods of steel (called re-bar in the states) into 2 foot lengths, stick one end of them into the fire, and when properly heated, we would fashion them, blacksmith style on an anvil, into intricate shapes. I am sure that my mother did not appreciate the ringing and hammering sounds.............. but we didn't appreciate all of the verbal racket either!
I remember, also, having to clean out the pipes and the flues once a year and that was not a nice job............. the deposits that we loosened really affected my eyes , nose, and throat.
I do remember George and I sometimes wish we still had the old beomouth(sp?)!
Regards,
Jim Moss
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