tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6002212249736084772.post5079053907223622787..comments2024-03-12T14:05:00.948-07:00Comments on Salvation Sisters: Grandma Elsie's Delicious Whole Wheat PancakesSalvation Sistershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780358097127781961noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6002212249736084772.post-42707654733948970482010-06-28T23:14:39.789-07:002010-06-28T23:14:39.789-07:00I received the following e-mail from Dad, that I a...I received the following e-mail from Dad, that I am sharing (with his permission):<br /><br /> Hey, Michelle, I really enjoyed the post. All three of you write beautifully! I think most of what is contained in this historical note is correct. However, I have to comment on the following: "Grandma Elsie worked her magic in the tiniest of kitchens in a house "built" during the depression by placing two railroad boxcars together, adding a roof and veneering the outside to resemble a typical residential house in Yucaipa, California."<br /> <br />If Grandpa Charley were to read this sentence, he would roll over in his grave. Why you ask? Dad was always offended that anyone would call those rail cars "box cars". He always made it perfectly clear that those two rail cars were refrigerator cars, not box cars. That seems like a rather trivial distinction, doesn't it? Well, in fact, there is a significant difference. That difference was 12 inches of horse hair insulation which made the house easy to heat in the winter and easy to cool in the summer. <br /> <br />For many years there was an old Duotherm oil heater that sat proudly in the living room. To the north of the house was a wooden frame work that supported a 55 gallon oil drum about 6 or 7 feet off the ground. There was a copper pipe that ran from the oil drum to the Duotherm heater in the living room. Oil would flow by gravity from the drum to the heater. Simple setup and it worked very well and kept the house very cozy in the winter. They eventually replaced the oil heater with a natural gas floor furnace when natural gas was finally made available on Bryant Street. But, personally, I really hated to see the old oil heater go.<br /> <br />Funny the things I remember. They had a wall-to-wall wool carpet in the living room. We got on to the fact that if you shuffled your feet on the wool carpeting and then closely approached the oil heater, one could draw an electric arc up to 1/2 inch or longer. If you held a key, the arc could be appreciated without the associated pain. Dad got the biggest kick out of doing that (no pun intended). It worked best at night and on very dry days.<br /> <br />One incident I recall vividly when I was 9 or 10, was the "mouse flap". The living room had a flat ceiling that had been wallpapered but over time, the clue had failed and the wallpaper sagged a bit. On occasion, we could hear a mouse scurrying around on the sagging wallpaper. Well, as only Mom could do, she was giving Dad a hard time about not doing anything about the "mouse problem". Well, this went on for what must have been several weeks and Dad had finally reached his limit. One memorable evening, while the mouse was scurrying around, Mom said something like: "Charley! When in hell are you going to do something about that damn mouse?" Dad was standing just below where the sound was coming from that the mouse was making. In one unbelievably fast motion, Dad's right palm shot upward and he crushed the mouse between the wallpaper and the wooden ceiling behind it! Wham, problem solved. Mom was speechless (for once). I just stood there with my mouth agape not quite believing what I had just witnessed. So, end of story, right? Wrong! Since there was no way to remove the dead mouse, it remained in the gap between the wallpaper and the ceiling boards. This was okay for about a week until we started getting this horrible stench in the living room. What to do, right? This problem was finally solved by Dad using a pocket knife to slice a small opening in the wallpaper whereby the remains of the mouse could be removed. But the odor remained for weeks and Mom continued to bitch the entire time... LOL.<br /> <br />With love,<br />DadMichellehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12223915282792998545noreply@blogger.com