"Viva" privacy.net> wrote in message
news:6fs7n4Fcte00U1@mid.individual.net...

you asked for it.

back when i was a young zol (9 years old actually), the building that the
blue trout grill is in used to be a rooming house/apartment house. it was
owned by mrs. walker, a very old lady (at least old to me at that time).
she called my parents and asked them if i wanted a job on saturday mornings
during the winter. they said i did, so i took the job.

that job was to get to the back door of the house "at 9 am on the dot!" (mrs
walker talking there), and go down in the cellar and clean all the ashes out
of the coal-fired boiler that provided heat to all the rooms in the
building. once mrs. walker decided that the boiler was clean enough, i
would take the ashes to the furthest corner of the backyard and dump them
and spread them out to make sure there were no embers or burning bits. then
i would go back down cellar, and start a fire in the boiler with kindling
and bits of paper. i had to stoke the fire until mrs. walker decided that
it was just right, then i had to shovel small amounts of coal into the
boiler, being careful to not smother the fire. once the coal started to
catch, mrs walker would tell me to put another small shovelful of coal in.
eventually the fire would be at the point where mrs. walker would tell me to
put 2 or 3 big shovelfuls of coal in. once she was content that the fire
was going nicely and i had done my job, i got paid. the huge sum of 25¢.
which to a 9 year old boy in 1970 meant that i could go to the saturday
afternoon matinee at the colonial. or if i had another 75¢, i could spend
the afternoon bowling candlepins at pastime lanes.

mrs. walker, the coal-fired boiler and pastime lanes are long gone, the
colonial is still there, and i haven't had to stoke a coal-fired boiler in
37 years.

bored yet? ;o)

zol