household incinerator

[chris]

see what i found:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 867,228721

its such a great imagination that housewifes in the sixties burnd ther old well worn high heels, homeslippers, ballerinas, boots in such incinerators.

does anyone has experience with that, or knows women who used that?

br
chris

[chris]

great find:




see the device on the right side, thats the incinerator. i wonder if she burned her heels in it

[erv2u]

We had one of these incinerators in a house we lived in once. It was an old dingy looking metal box about three foot wide and 3 foot tall. We didn’t use it but I imagine the previous owner would clean out her shoe closet once and a while and take a box of old worn out shoes and boots down to the basement. She would open the incinerator, the top had a lid with a handle on it and dump the box of unwanted shoes in. Maybe a floppy boot top had to be pushed in and the lid closed. The lady would then turn on the gas, poof it would light up. A day or two later she would need to take out the ashes.

[erv2u]

I want to treat this story with the respect it deserves. A woman wrote a story about packing her mothers things after her death. Jewish law forbids her to wear or give away her mothers shoes. Here is part of her story…

One month has passed since my mother died. My father sits in the living room, watching TV, while I sort through her jackets and shirts, skirts and sweaters, pile them on the bed in the room of my childhood. My husband will come by soon, help me put them into large bags. For charity.

I hold up a favorite white cotton sweater of hers against me, look at myself in the mirror, see only her. Jewish tradition permits me, if I choose, to wear her sweaters and dresses, jackets and blouses. But it is forbidden to walk in a dead person's shoes.

I am here, in the apartment of my childhood, carrying boxes of shoes through the foyer to the incinerator outside the door where, one by one, without emotion it seems, I push them down the chute. The black pumps worn day in and day out. The open-toed mustard leather high heels, also bought in white. The brown pumps, never worn. The black suede dress shoes edged in gold, barely worn. The red silk pompom slippers.

[chris]

@ ery2u, yes thats a sad story, i already read it some time ago.

nevertheless it must have been so sexy when women put ther old shoes in that items...




on that old pic, bottom row right shoe. it looks very well worn. maybe they ended up in such an incinerator soon after the shot was made...

[chris]

this pic is also great (see her toe popping ouf of the shoe)



maybe she was very frustrated after being on the scale. shes already in a bad mood... so she steps off the scale and walks in the kitchen, angrily taking of her bra and pants, opening the incinerator and tossing them in. then she also recognizes her mules are worn out and her toe always popping out. she takes one off her foot and recognizes her deep dirty toeimprints as well as the smell of her sweat in this old homeslipper. she hesitates shortly but then also tosses the first shoe in. she kicks off the second one, grabs it and into the incinerator with it....she is closing the door and with a little grin she turns the incinerator on and listen to the quiet start of the burningdevice. then she walks completely nude to the scale again to try another weight measure while her outfit slowly starts to turn into ashes...

[frank]

I can remember, when I was a teenager many years ago, most of the apartments had just one kind of heating, mostly wood stoves. I can remember a particular family, I knew closer, as they had a daughter in around the same age and we quite often spent some time together.
They heated the entire apartment with just one wood stove from one central room which was the kitchen. They didn’t take much care about the today’s environmental concerns and burned almost all the trash they had. Sometimes I became witness when her mother sorted out a pair of old shoes she wants to become rid of, either for being thrown into the fire immediately or being thrown into the wood basket for one of the next fires.
In these days people had not that many pairs of shoes as they are used to have today. I can especially remember the house slippers of both the daughter and the mother, they were worn for around one year and when they became too worn out, smelly and ugly they went directly into the oven.
One situation, I’ll never forget: I was aware that the house slippers of her mother became more and more worn out and ugly and of course smelly  and I was always really excited if these slippers are still on her feet. As fall was about to end and the days get colder I asked her mother about her slippers and that I had noticed that one was obviously worn through that I could see her toe already a little bit. She felt uncomfortable with this situation that I was aware of the bad shape of her house slippers and said: “Yes, you’re right, I have to get rid of them, as I have already a brand new pair for a couple of weeks”. I was really curious what is going on, but nothing happened, she just continued with her homework. I felt that this becomes the chance of all chances and asked again how she is going to get rid of them, she answered: “I just burn them – why?” I said: “When are you burning them, can I watch you, as I’ve never seen this before ?” “Hmm well, let me see where I have the new pair” she said and went into the secondary room and returned wearing her new slippers while she hold the old ones in her hand. “You see, it’s nothing really spectacular” she said, opened the oven and dropped her slippers in the fire.

[chris]

hi frank, nice to hear from you again! thats a great story.

what year was it and what style of slippers?

thank you very much for your story!

br
chris

[Fluxade]

I can still remember very well.
It was more than thirty-five years ago, one a cold winter evening. I was about 6 years old and sitting with my parents and grandparents in our small kitchen.
We had attendance that late. Our neighbour Mrs. Wesseling, a very attractive woman of thirty sat with us at the desk and smoked a cigarette in a silver cigarette point.
She worked in an expensive liquor shop in the city, was dressed always fashionable and used marvellous Perfume. This evening she had a large cardboard thereby, which she could hardly carry. When she opened it, it was full of lady shoes. My mother was totally surprised.
Mrs. Wesseling said in a bored manner, that she would wear from now on the fashionable flat pumps with block heels and could not wear the unfashionable high heels anymore. My mother may wear them or give them away, if she wants.
There were silver and black sandals, pumps, a pair of red pumps with black heels and toes and even Mrs. Wesselings white weddingshoes. Altogether more than one dozen pair of shoes. All shoes looked beautiful. My mother thanked her for the gift and our neighbour left. I was fascinated by the multiform and delicate shoes, which I partially already know from Mrs. Wesselings frequent attendance.
My mother tried on immediately all the shoes and noticed disappointedly that not one of them fitted her correctly. The shoes were a size too small.
My father was furious about that old shoes, and said:
"She has probably her garbage can already full and drags her muck now to us".
“I will ask my friends whether someone with the right size will wear the shoes”.
answered my mother.
Thus the cardboard with the shoes of Mrs. Wesseling disappeared in the storage chamber beside my children's room and was soon forgotten.
At the first opportunity I went into the chamber and opened the cardboard. Now I tried on each pair. I sank with my small feet into the shoes. After a wile, I managed to go in that heels. I bound the straps of the sandals together and put a handkerchief into the pumps. I walked in always new shoe variations back and forth, or admired simply the marvellous forms and colours of the heels.
In my shoe hit parade, the delicate black sandals were the number ones and were followed by a pair of red pumps with pointed black heels and the almost new white weddingshoes. They had a strap around the ankle and a peeping hole in the toebox.
One of the best things however was the smell of the shoes, which I can hardly describe. It was a mixture from leather, Mrs. Wesselings heavy Perfume and this new, indescribable smell.
Knowing that I did somewhat forbidden, I paid fearfully attention not to be caught playing with the shoes. I put all the shoes back, always embarrassingly, exactly to the place in the cardboard, from which I had taken them and everything was stowed away again, carefully, before my parents came back. Nobody ever got me.
Thus a half year passes by, up to that day as I came home from school and found my father cleaning out the storage chamber.
The box with the heels was gone. I dare not to ask my father about the shoes. I should regain them soon.
I found the box with the shoes in the boiler room near the work bench. It was summer, our old coal boiler was not in operation, and I could play now with the shoes untroubled. Still nobody got me.
If someone opened the cellar door, I shoved the pair, which I had taken from the box, under the workbench, and played with my father tools.
As the winters came the boiler was ignited. That was exciting, and I was mad about throwing coal or wood into the old boiler. Often if I played in the cellar. I opened the hatch to observe the glow or throw a piece of wood or paper into the fire, which burned then sizzling, with bright flame.
One day however, when I was with my father in the cellar, he remembered the carton with the old lady shoes, which was up to then apparently forgotten in the corner. He opened it, poured all the shoes into the coal crate and picked out indiscriminately one. "well" he said, "Do you want to throw that old rubbish into the boiler?" Rigidly before fright, I stood stiff. "No fear“ he said „ we can burn that old shoes“. „They do not fit mummy“. My father gave me a wine-red, high heeled pumps with a ribbon and a small opening for the toes, opened the fire hatch and said: "What are you waiting for?“ „Throw that old shoe inside!" I touched the soft leather and the slim, pointed heel for the last time. I was despaired and did not dare to speak against my father. My father became impatient and with trembling hand I put the shoe finally into the glow.
My stomach cramped together and I felt a strange pulling in my abdomen.
I heard a quiet, hissing noise and saw the lady shoe in the enormous heat bent and turning. Suddenly, almost like an explosion the shoe was on bright fire.
Fast the shoe was gone. It stank of sweet burned leather and it remained only a flat, red-hot sheet of metal, which gave formerly the stability to the high heel.
"that was a short pleasure." my father said " these unpractical shoes are not even worth for heating." and laughed. I hated my father and had to howl as I was alone in the boiler room again.
It was for sure that sooner or later all my shoes would end in such a way.
One day, i was wearing a pair of beautiful, black sandals, when I heard the cellar door was opened. Fast I loosened the delicate buckles and could throw the shoes still in time to the others into the coal crate. My father came in, took a shovel full of coals and poured it into the boiler. However the glow was already too weak to inflame the coal fire again. He considered one moment, took then one of the black sandals from the coal crate and stuffed it carefully with old an newspapers page. I stared helplessly at the stuffed shoe. Then he hold the slim, high heel like a grasp, opened the Fire hatch and stacked the elegant shoe with the toe in front deeply into the glowing coals.

I felt a dull impact in the gastric region. "in such a way, the old shoe pays for it self.“ He laughed and waited until the paper between the thin straps had ignited. Then he left the room. Fast I tried to save the shoe from the flames. But until I had opened the fire hatch and found a thing suitable as a fishing rod to rescue the sandal from the heat, the paper was burned completely and with it the delicate straps of the sandal.

Deeply shocked and at the same time fascinated I stared into the flames. Again I felt this pulling feeling in my abdomen. The thin inner sole became detached from the shoe in the heat and burned fast with a bright, blue flame. Then the fire ate slowly the leather sole and left a bizarre, grey ash stand of which the former form of the shoe could only suspected. The high stiletto heel burned last. The plastic melted and dripped burning into the glow. The sweet smell of burned leather mixed with the smell from burning plastics. Except flashing ash, remained finally only a few glowing heel nails, a small metal buckle and the curved metal spring. I closed the fire hatch and took the second, still intact sandal out of the coal crate, smelled at it and shifted my small foot slowly inside. With only one shoe I walked around silently crying. The thin straps cut into my foot and I heard the bright clicking of the heel on the hard cement floor of the cellar.
It was terrible!.
My father burned the shoes not as complete pairs. Finally only the remained single shoes were scattered in the coal crate.
As he wanted to burn a red heel I protested carefully
"I would like to play with that old shoe" I said quietly and looked down to the floor. "what?" did my father say "Playing with that stupid high heels?" He laughed! "Lets leave this to the ladies, they play much better with that kind of shoes" and throw the shoe deep into the fire hatch causing sparks.

Except for a pair half-open black pumps, with lateral straps, all shoes were burned. I took heart and hid this last, complete pair under the work bench behind old, rusty iron profiles.
A little later Mrs Wesselings gift was burned to ash. However I had saved that pair of black pumps!
Everything went well, until that day I came home from school and found my father welding a new hand rail for the stairway. Full of panic, I ran down to the boiler room. The iron profiles under the workbench had disappeared and with them my last pair of black pumps. I searched the whole coal crate. Without success.
The glow in the boiler lit up blood-red as always and heated my face up.
Finally I recognised a few pieces of metal in the glow, left by the fire.

As our neighbour Mrs. Wesseling, even my mother had a shoe-tick and bought a pair of High heels after the other in my aunts shoe store.

Mother had the habit to distribute her shoes in the whole house. There was neither a shoe cabinet nor a shoe shelf. Her shoes were almost in each angle of the house. My father was annoyed because of the unpractical high heels, which lie about everywhere in the house and could cause someone stumble.

He solved the problem his way.
If my mother did not wear a pair of her heels for a short time, he collected it and added it to the big carton which was in the boiler room beside the coal crate.
If the shoes were not missed for a certain time, he took them out of the carton and burned the them in the boiler.

If my mother noticed that she missed a pair of her shoes, my father said: "oh, those old shoes which you had not worn anymore?“ “I got rid of them" “Look, they had been totally out of fashion”.
My father did not make himself the trouble to burn the shoes in complete pairs. If only an individual unnecessary shoe was noticeable to him, he did not look for the second one. That led sometimes to the fact that my mother searched for a right or left missing high heel which was already burned in the boiler. She gave up the search usually fast and my father burned the residual shoe in the boiler, immediately.
My mother bought again and again new shoes, which my father burned after more or less short time. The more lavish the shoes were and the more rarely my mother put them on her feet, the faster the shoes ended in the flames. Often not more than once worn.
Sometimes I tried to rescue a pretty pair from the flames. However it never succeeded to me. My father was too smart. He discovered sooner or later all my hiding places and threw the shoes immediately into the fire.
However If the boiler was not in operation, I was allowed to play a whole summer with the beautiful high heels. The cardboard beside the coal crate was filled fat with shoes at the end of the summer. Pumps and high heeled sandals in all colours and forms were stuffed into the carton.
A shoe after the other disappeared in the first days of the heating season in the boiler and the whole cellar was filled with the smell of burned leather.

[Thys]

Reminds me of that famous scene in which Matt Damon incinerates some nice green heels in the movie A Kiss Before Dying.