Originally printed in the Observer & Eccentric Newspaper
In my beginning years of fixing appliances I spent some time
in England staying in a Flat in downtown London. I was impressed by an AGA
kitchen range which provided constant heat using oil as a fuel and venting to
the outside. In the past 80 years it still proves to be a popular product used
by thousands of the Queen’s subjects. Joe Henderson, a voice of many years in
the appliance industry tells me they were also a high end range sold in this
country some 50 years ago. My darling Valorie also tells me she has seen them
in magazines on kitchen designs etc. The concept of this range makes me just
slightly curious but not enough to purchase one. Even though this range can now
be programmed by your cell phone I still can’t picture myself explaining to our
neighbors why black smoke is coming out of a pipe on the side of our house. Sometimes
I think I am such an old fashioned guy and love the way things once were. On my
recent yearly fishing trip to the wilds of Northern Canada such became the
case. My friends and I left early in the morning knowing full well that the
largest forest fire in Canada was burning in close proximity to our fishing
cabin. The fire was 100 miles long and 3 miles wide and was being fueled by 40
mph winds with no rain or calm weather in sight. All main highways were closed
and would be for 10 to 14 days leaving just a bush road open to those either
crazy enough or with plain old courage, to make the journey. We arrived at the
fishing lodge and set up in our cabin which had no electricity because the
power lines had been consumed by the forest fire. The portable generators were
only big enough to supply the water pumps so we had running water and we used
propane gas lanterns and candles just like the old days. We were now set for 7
days of fishing and adventure and hopefully would not be evacuated from our
warm and heavenly spot.
My responsibility on these fishing trips is to wake up the
guys at 5:30 and make a pot of coffee with the modern coffee maker of today
which needs electricity to work properly. That was a problem until I opened a
cupboard and spied sitting on the shelf this old beat up tin pot with a glass
bubble on top. My memory clicked on and I figured out how to use it. You pull
out this long rod which holds a round screen affair which you fill with coffee.
You then fill the tin pot with water and place it on the burner of the gas
range which is connected to a propane tank outside. You turn the burner on high
until the coffee begins to percolate and then to low heat for 5 minutes. I
poured 4 cups of coffee and placed them on the kitchen table and my 3 coffee
drinking fishing buddies had nothing but compliments about the taste of their
cups of coffee. And so after 3 days of living without electricity the power
supply was restored and for the remainder of the trip, I was asked to use the
tin pot and forget about the modern coffee maker sitting on the kitchen
counter.
On a very personal level one of the guys was having a
constipation problem and I used an old Indian method of curing the ailment. I
stripped a small section of a Birch tree and after removing the bark; I cut out
a quarter size chunk of the tree and had this guy chew on it for 15 minutes. It
tastes like Turpentine but he said it worked better than the drugstore product.
Such is the verbiage that old can become
new and 50 years from now homeowners will seek out old major home appliances
because they were made better than today. Stay tuned.
I have a 5-year old Kenmore dishwasher that doesn't start when the door is closed, even if the lock light is on. I've turned the breaker on and off, turned the water feed
on and off, and I've held the start button for 30 seconds but nothing happens. What do you think is wrong?
