Dad's Anthracite

There are some things in my life that I appreciate now, more than when I had them.
My dad's coal stove is one such thing: As a teenager, it used to bother me to go to my father's house in the country on the weekends (RD#3 Dalton, PA--just 1 mile from Lake Winola, 1.5 miles past the Baylor Ice Co., on the corner of Freeman Rd and Purdy Rd, right next door to the one-room-schoolhouse and cornfield).

As much as I loved spending time with my sister and him, it seemed so far removed from everything. I never even told my friends that we had a coal stove. My father, son of Al Leggat from A. Leggat & Co. Heating and Cooling, to this day, knows more about green energy than Al Gore. When my father bought our house in Dalton, he installed a beautiful coal stove in the basement, which he ran every winter using Pennsylvania anthracite coal. Besides heating the house, the coal stove served many useful purposes. I loved it when my father would fill a metal pot with water, and place it on the stove for humidity. Or in the middle of winter, after we would make fresh squeezed orange juice from the ripe oranges from FL, he would put the rinds on the stove and let them dry. The whole house was perfumed with ripe oranges all month long. The stove would force such warm air, that after I took my shower, I stood in front of it for 10 min. and my hair would dry. (My father also had tons of Lubriderm Lotion on hand for my constant dry skin). My father would also deposit the white ash onto the driveway. There was never a need for rock salt. Any excess ash went onto a mound right next to the compost pile. I believe it was the combination of the ash and compost that produced some of the most random vegetables growing in that area. He would let them grow and the woodchucks would eat them. How amusing it was to watch them in the yard.
Speaking of creatures, I will never forget one spring. My father was cleaning the exhaust pipe. He was meticulous in doing this. I watched as he reached his hand into the pipe only to bring out a dried bat. Yes, the bat must have gotten stuck in the pipe and literally dried to death in the pipe. It looked like something from a Hitchcock film. Its poor little wings expanded, like it was gripping onto the sides of the pipe. Yes, I have been scarred for life!

In this day and age, when windmills are popping up faster than daffodils, it is nice to know that over 20 years ago, my father embarked on reducing his carbon footprint as a one-man journey.