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Obsolete Desires
Sep. 8th, 2010 09:39 pmLast winter I had an atrocious time with parking lot slush that had been driven through, then frozen hard into impassible ridges. I destroyed a (admittedly cheap) snow shovel trying to clean a path, and missed several days of work anyway because I simply could not leave the parking lot. This year, I decided I'd be prepared - I'd get an old fashioned coal hammer to bust up ice, and an old fashioned coal shovel to shovel the chunks. With such tools, I would be the Badass of Winter.
Well...
Coal shovels are still made. Most of them are atrociously lightweight, made from aluminum (one even had a plastic blade) with pine handles, and seem to be designed to look rustic more than to actually shovel coal or rocks. Still, $50 will get you a nice, heavy steel shovel with a hickory handle. It will hold up shoveling ice.
A coal hammer proved to be more problematic. Most of America is apparently too young to know what a coal hammer is, to start with. It's basically a one-handed sledge hammer with a wedge-shaped face. You can bust a big chunk of hard coal to pieces with one swing. You'd logically think that if there's still a market for coal shovels, there'd be one for coal hammers, but that doesn't seem to be the case. You can get them as antiques, but not as ordinary tools. I may end up getting an antique one, as they're reasonably priced.
You'd also kind of think a place with an enormous sign out front that said "Columbus Coal and Lime - Since 1888!" might actually sell coal, and possibly even coal shovels and hammers. Thinking that would make you a big fat dumbass like me, though, staring blankly at their assortment of decorative paving blocks, and slowly realizing that there wasn't so much as an ounce of coal on the premises.
Well...
Coal shovels are still made. Most of them are atrociously lightweight, made from aluminum (one even had a plastic blade) with pine handles, and seem to be designed to look rustic more than to actually shovel coal or rocks. Still, $50 will get you a nice, heavy steel shovel with a hickory handle. It will hold up shoveling ice.
A coal hammer proved to be more problematic. Most of America is apparently too young to know what a coal hammer is, to start with. It's basically a one-handed sledge hammer with a wedge-shaped face. You can bust a big chunk of hard coal to pieces with one swing. You'd logically think that if there's still a market for coal shovels, there'd be one for coal hammers, but that doesn't seem to be the case. You can get them as antiques, but not as ordinary tools. I may end up getting an antique one, as they're reasonably priced.
You'd also kind of think a place with an enormous sign out front that said "Columbus Coal and Lime - Since 1888!" might actually sell coal, and possibly even coal shovels and hammers. Thinking that would make you a big fat dumbass like me, though, staring blankly at their assortment of decorative paving blocks, and slowly realizing that there wasn't so much as an ounce of coal on the premises.
