coal miner's grandaughter

okay. here's another one of those weirdish irsh kinda things, that fully cracks me up.

i'd hazzard to say that the only time i've ever seen coal in canada is in the summer when people use those brickette thingys for their barbeques. even so, i'd say that those aren't really that common. most people have gas/propane barbeques. in fact, i didn't really know that coal was still being mined.

seriously.

when i hear coal, i think industrial revolution to the early 1900's. i certainly do NOT think western industrialised country where there is access to running water. well, that just sort of brings up a whole other issue... which i will blog about shortly. anyway, yeah. so i also think about mining towns and kids and all those things. and i think about how my grandpa (which i have previously mentioned as being older than... um, lots of things) was a miner and one caved in and crushed his jaw and all of his teeth. that's why he had dentures.

in ireland it is very common to have a coal fire. they actually get it delivered, and then scoop it up and burn it. there's even clean burning coal... i'm guessing that's good, or else i would have black lung (which is something else i remember about coal from social studies class). we don't burn it at my house (clearly that would cause a heating issue-in that there would be some heat going on, and my housemate sweats when the temperature reaches 10). jim and tara burn it at their house. and it's weird. it's warm, but yeah... weird. coal. who knew it still existed?