Bloggin' Umholtz

You See the Strangest Things at the Umholtz House

         Growing up, we heated our house with coal, anthracite coal. I know this because it was my job to shovel the coal into the basement and my job to carry the ashes out. Later on we heated our house with coal and wood, and a little while after that we heated our house with coal, wood and oil. Now, my dad heats the house with oil and natural gas. It’s an evolution of sorts. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about today. It is coal that leads us into this story.

         It was a lopsided affair. The coal bin held seven tons of buckwheat size(about the size of a black cherry) coal, nine tons, if you pushed and pulled it back from the chute until it touched the joists of the floor above. That’s a lot of coal to shovel. In contrast, the ashes amounted to two to three bushel basket size cans a week. Still, I’d rather shovel the coal.

         The nine-ton maximum capacity of the coal bin was always reached before the winter weather settled in. The logic was simple. With the possibility of several feet of snow accumulating on the ground, it would be impossible, well at least difficult, to get the truck of coal into the yard next to the coal door that led into the coal bin. Still there were years when the winter was particularly harsh and nine ton just wasn’t going to make it. That usually resulted in a Saturday morning snow shoveling festival clearing out the side yard so we could get the truck in and shovel the coal into the basement. Shoveling several feet of accumulated snow is no picnic and certainly not my idea of a “festival”. Things got easier when Pop bought the snowblower - mail order, from a company called Aldens if I remember correctly, first one on the block. And that, my dear reader, is the second component of this story.

         The third component of this story is one I’ve mentioned in an earlier post about our cat. That component is my dog, Cuddles (alias Puddles). Cuddles was what you would call a Field Champion…only nobody’s sure whose field. Pop said he was a soup hound, or in other words, a ketchup dog – Heinz, 57 varieties to be exact. Still, we loved him dearly. At least I thought we all did, right up to the day Pop tried to kill him.

         I was away at school (Penn State University) dutifully studying for my chosen career. Translation – drinking beer and trying to get laid. I was immensely more successful in one of these pursuits, than the other. You figure it out. It was one of those particularly hard winters when nine ton of coal just wasn’t going to make it, so Pop got out the snowblower to clear the snow from the side yard in anticipation of my coming home one weekend to shovel coal.

         At the end of the side yard sat a huge Eastern Hemlock tree, and in the winter, in order for Cuddles to get some fresh air and exercise, we would put him on a fairly long leash and tie it to one of the lower limbs of the hemlock. Such was the case when Pop decided to clear the yard.

         The sun was shining. The sky was a crisp winter blue. Pop was blowing snow. The dog was running around barking at the noisy snowblower. All was right with the world... and then, the dog’s rope got caught in the snowblower.

         My dad is one of the calmest individuals I know. He’s not quick to anger and very rarely have I seen him get flustered or panic. This, evidently, was one of those times. When he realized what had happened, he let go of the snowblower, ran around to the front and grabbed Cuddles. He held on tightly as the snowblower slowly wound in the rope. He held on so tightly that the dog’s leather harness finally snapped, releasing Cuddles from what surely would have been a gruesome finish and my dad from having to explain to me how he “snowblowed Cuddles” all over the yard.

         Cuddles was free, but this presented another problem. The dog was petrified and Pop knew if he let him go, he’d take off and he’d have a heck of a time getting him back, so he half carried and half drug Cuddles into the house. Meanwhile the snowblower continued to slowly wind in the rope.

         Once the dog was in the house, my dad took a moment to calm his nerves and discuss the event with his good friend Johnny Walker, before returning to the scene of the near fatal accident. Once he did, what he found was a snowblower that had wound in all the rope and was swinging gingerly from a tree limb in the afternoon breeze... and one of the neighbors leaning on the fence watching it.

         Of course he never told me any of this until after I finished shoveling the coal.