The small house on Barbour Street had a big yard for a lot of the city. Father built a garage and we had a small garden. We had a paved road and pavements. The yard was about two feet above the sidewalk with a wall of ash top on both sides. I got a BB gun for Christmas and was looking for something to shoot. Mother always said, do not shoot the birds, so I found other things to shoot. For some strange reason, I wondered if I could shoot thetobacco from a cigarette butt. I loved the ass at the end of the BB gun and pulled the trigger. I lost my ass and got my thumb, what a mess.
Father worked for the West Kentucky Coal Company in 1950 and was responsible for operations in the south metro great mine of Providence, Kentucky. He made good money, Mom was always rebuild the house. One project was to dig a cellar under the existing house. During the final stages of construction have beena large number of cinder blocks in the basement unfinished. Many of my friends and I took the blocks and built two forts, one in each corner of the basement. We then took our BB guns and fight. I was shot in the back until I discovered that the other side was shooting at the wall behind me and BB were reflected around the basement like a madman. No one was hurt, but the BB gun duels finished in the cellar.
Father would often take me to the mines andGive me small jobs to keep me busy. Before taking the job with the West Kentucky Coal Company, his father owns a small mine in the south of town on Hwy 109. This was a shallow mine in the side of a hill and used a small pony for coal from the mine car to pull. I remember my father gave me a saw and cut the pipe, I worked all day on the tube and do not remember if I ever finished the job. The mine went down Hwy 109 and during one of the many mine collapses in the street. Fell in creating abig bump in the road.
The largest mine was a good operation, I would be crawling over the coals until the burden is made of two thick and then dad would come with the equipment underground. Then just start with the tunnel cut into the sides of the strip, avoiding the need for ramps, digging for coal. Modern equipment has been used in the mine, and I was interested in the new front-end loader. He had big arms in front, scoop the coal onto a conveyor belt, and thatreused. Electric cars could be found under the coal conveyor belt to load. One day, while barefoot, I jumped on the front of the magazine, felt the current and bounced right back again. If I had stepped on his foot still on the ground, I'm sure it would kill me.
Dad let me read the broken electric wires that ran the mine for the equipment. We have to spread the two wires and cut them in a knot a few inches away. Take a rollrubber electrical tape and wrap the connection with the sticky side of tape facing outward. This was so they could quickly flip the roll of tape around the link to the whole roll of tape has been used up. This would be the effort to pull the mine wet.
The mother had her eye on a bigger house just a half block of the hill on Barbour Street. It was a three-story house and one of the best in the city at this time. In 1951 came available and we moved to E 'wasWell, we all had rooms. The upper floor was once a three bedroom apartment, the kitchen was just right on top of the stairs. The bedroom was directly opposite the stairs to reach the door. A second room is left on top of the stairs. My sisters got the bedroom to the left, our parents had the bedroom and the kitchen turned into a small bedroom for me.
The kitchen was large bedroom, my bed was a little 'less of a windowignored the porch to the house. The roof of the porch was on the ground and I could get off my window and the roof for a breathtaking view of the night sky. The sink was so I had running water in my bedroom too. Under the sink there was a whiteboard that I removed my secret hideout. The flue chimney came through the center of my bedroom to create a wardrobe next to the sink and a great refuge.
The house was heated with coal.The corner room was the basement boiler room and coal. A gutter on the side of the house, unloading coal. You could slide down the chute into the house. Father installed a stoker coal supply to power the little fireman in the bottom of the oven and once or twice we had that voice would be built by the combustion of coal. A boiler furnace above the steam delivered to the radiators in every room of the house. Mother renovation of the house, creating an arcbetween the dining room and modern kitchen at the intermediate level. They also added a large rear terrace and we had him projected in Perm-A-fitting stone installed on the house and the house looked like a rock.
There was a garage on the right side of the house. A drive around the left side at the bottom has brought to light the basement. A concrete floor on the porch with a single step down in the basement. The yard was large with a drainageditch in the middle. Space for a garden on the other side of the ditch. I built my fortress 9-9 square meters with a flat roof that sometimes I had a background of tobacco sticks.
The field behind the house was an old tobacco barn and shallow pond, which was a great place to play. Tobacco sticks are about 1 / 2 inches square and about 5 meters in length. They used them for many beams in the large barn and hang tobacco. The barn was not used and wasfull of tobacco sticks. We would stack them up on poles and beams for the floors. We also used to make rafts for the fortifications and the construction of the pond. At one point my neighbor Tommy and I dug a long trench and the use of sticks, cardboard and scrap boards, put a roof over the pit and covered with dirt. I made a big tunnel and shelter.
Father knew all the old coal mines beneath the city, and when our septic tank failed, resulted in a drill anddrilled down into the old abandoned mine shaft. When the drill hit the coal seam, the father knew it was the center of a pillar on the left to support the roof. He left a couple of sticks of dynamite into the hole and blew out the side of the pillar in the mine. After that we never had any problems with the septic tank again.
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