28 September, 2001 - 10:23 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Ashpits and Alleys

Alleys were lanes between homes, the backs faced the alleys and the fronts faced the streets. When I was very young our alley was dirt and later paved. With the bulk of the heating done by coal in Denver then the black cloud was quite evident in cool weather.

As Gene Amole said in his column, the rich people used hard coal, but us peons used soft coal as it fit the budgets of plain folks. Most every house had a furnace in the basement and a coal bin accessible from the outside by a window and from the inside it was open with wooden sides. Sometimes coal was delivered from the street and sometimes from the alley.

Every furnace and kitchen coal stove made ashes, ashes, ashes. And they were put into ashpits at the alley. Usually square, and a bit above waist high with a round hole in the middle to dump ashes. There would be a small hinged door, low down at the alley side of the pit where the ash haulers could take out ashes. On top of the ashpit were the garbage cans. Our city paid the hog farmers at the edge of town to pick up the garbage. And they were happy to do so, feeding the garbage to the hogs and increasing their profits. The trash barrels (usually 55 gallon drums with one end knocked out) were near the ashpit and could be reached by the trash haulers. I remember that in Industrial Arts (shop) I made a guard for our ashpit hole to avoid any kid's falling into the hot ashes. Ashes insulated themselves and below the cool surface it was hot enough to give third degree burns to one who fell in. In many ways alleys in Denver were arteries of business, the iceman came down the alley, deliveries often were made from the alley, the rag and bottle collectors would drive down the alley in a wagon pulled by a horse. When I was young I couldn't figure out what they said as they went on their way. It was a phrase said so many times that the meaning and feeling had gone out of it. But house wives heard and understood. They were paid little for their rags and bottles, but every cent counted. What the men would say as they moved in the alley was, "Rags and bottles," corrupted and slurred as to be almost incomprehensible, "Raas n boles," is what I can remember hearing.

Kids business was conducted in the alleys, buying, selling, swapping, lending, borrowing and some times show and tell of prized possessions took place too. We ranged the neighborhood alleys looking for anything we could use to make whatever we were working on, and sometimes scavenging for something that might be of value at our homes. Wire clothes hangers were usually snatched up for use at home or used for making our Rube Goldberg contraptions.

Women would stand at the fence in the alley and gab, not having to speak too loud because the alleys were narrow. I could usually tell if a choice piece of gossip was about, because one lady would cross the alley and go in for tea or coffee, leaving me in ignorance. Probably better that way, as I grew, the knowledge that a good part of the gossip was speculative untruths.

Many houses in the neighborhood had a garage facing the alley where the family car lived. When I was young automobiles were used for weekend rides and visits to nearby towns to see friends and relatives on a Sunday. People going to and from work rode the trolley.

In our day alleys were a necessity. Absolutely needed. We kids rode our tricycles, and sidewalk bicycles up and down our alley. Sidewalk bicycles were a shirttail relative to the biggies. The wheels were quite small, they were hard to balance as a boys body rode so high above the wheels, and the small wheels didn't handle bumps very well. Much worse than the motorized Cushman scooters that became popular in later years.

When we are in the neighborhood Heather and I will drive by the houses we were raised in, down the street to look at her house and see the changes made since she lived there, and down the alley to see the two room house on the alley where I was raised and the changes made there. In front of my old house a full sized house had been built and the little house was still being lived in when I was there recently. Obviously occupied by someone who cares about it. The little house on the alley, my gateway to the store, drug store and bakery.

So a fondness in my heart is there for Ashpits And Alleys . . . . . .

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