"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:XNY4f.25663$p_.17329@trndny05...
wrote:

And I grew up in a neighborhood where everybody burned coal.

My grandparents house had a coal furnace at one time. The driveway was
made up
of clinkers from the ashes. I remember trying to walk across that
barefoot. No fun!

As I recall, Papa said they had an automatic stoker, but it wasn't
foolproof. He
still spent some time down there with a shovel.

You still had to load the stoker every so often and remove the clinkers from
the firebox. The automatic stokers took the same amount of work just took
fewer but longer trips to the basement.


George Patterson
Drink is the curse of the land. It makes you quarrel with your
neighbor.
It makes you shoot at your landlord. And it makes you miss him.