about. And I think, if I don't tell them, who will?
Like ash pits. Ash pits were deep concrete receptacles that weary home owners (or rentors)
would deposit the remains of their coal after it had kept you somewhat warm through the
night. The ash pits were located in the alley. Ah, children of suburbia, allies ran behind
houses. You could keep up with your neighbors on the block behind you and didn't get the
reputation as a nosy neighbor.
We had one at my first home on Lafayette, in St. Louis. As a child, it seemed
immense. Our second house, on Winona, much newer, did not have an ash pit. By the time we moved to our third and final home we inhabited as a family, there was an alley and an
ash pit. Some how, it seemed not as huge as the first. By the time we lived in the third house
on Tholozan, there wasn't much to put in your ash pit. Some people planted tall, abundant
flowers. As I recall, my father used to put grass clippings and leaves in ours. I guess we
had a compost pile before it was cool to be green.
Our first flat on Lafayette was next to a grocery store and every so often, a rat or two would
show up in our ash pit. The man in the downstairs flat, Bull O'conor, would perform a
public service by eliminating the rats with some sort of gun.
Don't want to bore you too much with this first entry, but look later for tales of listing to
the radio, getting a bobby pin stuck between my teeth, and shattering myself out the
window in our downstairs entry.
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