ISBN 978-0-692-03359-3
51695>
9 780692 033593
REMEMBERING ARKIE
On the Blessings and Hazards of Coal Oil
W
hat I want to write about today is great events and old memories of 1927. That was the year that Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs and Charles Lindberg landed in Paris. It was the year Waldron got electricity in homes and the school house burned down. It was the year that Dad bought a one-horse wagon and an old gray horse named Bill to haul slop from the old café. Ruth and Lindberg had nothing to do with Waldron, so the first thing I’m going to write about is the coal-oil lamps and other uses of coal oil before electricity came in. Before that, you could be walking down the street on a summer night and hear people call their kids to come out on the porch — “Blow that light out and quit burning that high-priced fuel.”
The house where Arkie grew up — and a close-up of my 12-year-old finger.
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Akrie’s Publications in “The Waldren News” I remember well what the price of coal oil was in those days. Everybody in town got 10 cents a gallon except Bird’s service station. They got eight cents, but everybody bought at the grocery store because Bird’s didn’t have a tater put on the end of the can’s spout. You had to have that to keep the coal oil from sloshing out while you were carrying it home. Speaking of high-priced fuel, at 10 cents a gallon, you have got to consider that men were stacking lumber at the lumber yard for 10 cents an hour. But as for knowing how long a lamp would burn depended on how skilled you were at trimming the wick. You see, when a coal-oil lamp got to smoking, or a big red blaze got to running up the globe, they would say, “That lamp’s running away. I’ve got to trim the wick.” So you either took a pair of scissors or a razor blade and made a straight cut on the wick or you would still be in trouble. Now coal oil had a lot of other good uses. For instance, if you stepped on a rusty nail, all you had to do was put your foot in a pan of coal oil. If your chickens got the scaly legs, you put their legs in a can of coal oil. If you found a pocket knife with the blade rusted shut, you could put it in a can of coal oil. Uncle John Allen, the old blacksmith, used to keep a can handy in case he hit his finger with a hammer. If you had a head cold, your nose was stopped up and you wanted quick relief, all you had to do was get one of those old tin cups that used to hang on the hand pump on the old courthouse lawn, put a tablespoon of Vick’s salve in it and hold it over the top of the lamp until the Vick’s began to smoke, then take one big whiff and your head cold was clear as a bell. I don’t know who furnished that cup but they used to sell for a nickel. During court week and cotton-ginning time, that nickel was put to good use. Back to the coal oil, one night at home my mother looked over at the lamp and it was running away. She said, “I’ve got to trim that wick.” The globe was extra hot from a red blaze running 31
REMEMBERING ARKIE up the inside. She took it off and laid it on a table. My brother Hervey was just beginning to crawl. He was crawling across the floor with nothing on but a diaper, and just as he got even with the globe it rolled off the table and hit him on the leg. When we pulled it loose from his leg it took hide, meat and all. I am sure he still has the scar to show for it, but he came out of it all right. He played four years of football and marched 30 years in the Army on that leg. I don’t remember, but we must have put a lot of coal oil on that leg.
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ISBN 978-0-692-03359-3
51695>
9 780692 033593