The Old Coal Chute

Don't know if many of you remember, but we still have the place in the backside of our house where the old coal chute was. The basement has a special place where the coal went. I can remember the big coal truck coming and then the noise of the coal rolling down the chute. Dirt flew everywhere but that was okay , because we had a coal stove Granny cooked on and that was the only way we had of keeping warm in the winter. I always wondered why sometimes the coal was pretty shaped and then other times ugly. I ask Grandpa one day and he said one was slack coal to mix with the expensive coal. When you got the special shape coal it was more expensive. We couldn't afford but one load of that so he always mixed it. 

Grandma made sure it wasn't wash day when we had coal coming.  The back of the basement was blocked off just for the coal bin so it wouldn't  get all over the basement. We always had such a nice warm house. That old warm morning stove could put out the heat, we had one upstairs and one downstairs, they had to heat the whole house, except for the kitchen and it had its own coal stove. Then sometimes I saw Grandpa put big lumps  of coal on the stove at night so it wouldn't burn up so fast and keep everything cozy till morning.