Feb. 02, 2004 - 21:12 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Zilch

I almost had an entry made when I pushed the wrong key and got a sour note informing me that it had left for the outer regions of space.

Its much too late to try to reassemble my thoughts coherently, and besides, another day will probably bring another twist to the situation. I'll think further on it tomorrow after I read the news paper.

Just now I was thinking back to some of the ways we stayed warm through the years mostly good experiences. A short time or two early in our married life we had to heat and cook with "coal oil" (kerosene). I hated kerosene stoves or heaters, the stench was suffocating. Then when we lived in Illinois for a short time we heated and cooked with kerosene. Later when we went to Florida one of the things we had to do was heat and cook with "coal oil," once again." We spent a winter in, I think it was called, "Camp DeSoto," part of the World War Two military buildings that had been divided into apartments in Tampa. Again heating and cooking using kerosene. Then there were a few years of reasonable heat, but the last place we lived once again it was cooking and heating with kerosene. Gee, I choke just thinking about it. I have always hated to be cold, but the doubtful comfort of kerosene in the house was our onus.

We had a coal range in the house I was raised in and emptying ashes (when I got old enough), breaking up the big lumps of coal in the shed and splitting kindling was old hat and very matter of course to me. And the warmth was delicious to my cranky body. For a while we lived in a two story building where it was my job to take care of a coal furnace, but at least the coal was delivered in "nut" size I think it was. Didn't have to be hammered to fire the furnace. We did cook on a natural gas stove, I had no complaints about that either. When we moved into my Dad's place we had the luxury of natural gas heat and maybe once a year we would have our utility company come in and check the furnace and controls out. A natural gas stove there too. The last house we lived in we had natural gas heat and an electric stove.

In our apartment in the complex here the heating is central with just a blower and a thermostat bringing heat into the apartment. It also has an electric stove.

Comparatively we live in the lap of comfortable luxury, but we served our time with that overpowering kerosene aroma. Trimming the wicks and trying to get everything ship shape and still choking on the durn stuff.

Not all memories are strictly good, and those I wrote about tonight were not all bad either, we had lots of fun even though the odoriferous kerosene perfumed the scene. So for tonight, back into memories once more. I imagine many of the folks of my age remember those horrible kerosene heaters and stoves. A kerosene mantle lamp was smelly enough, the one my Grandma had.

Tonight ? Essentially reminiscences ---- more or less Zilch . . . . . . . . . . . .

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