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Coal was never clean growing up

Reader muses about coal when he was a child.

To the Editor,

Re: coal port.

I remember heating with coal when I was a kid. The stuff would flow down the chute into our basement bin.

I sometimes stole a piece to use as chalk on a sidewalk —black hands, black on clothes, black smudges all over the place equaled an unhappy mother!

My brother and I got to shovel it into the furnace, and clean out the dust in the bin.  Coal is not clean. The dust was everywhere.

Maybe Jim Irvine’s family had better coal than we did.

Negativity is so exhausting, I agree.  Complainers are never very popular.  I haven’t heard that Port Alberni had a reputation for being against everything though.

Perhaps what we need are some ideas that we can all support. A bit of creativity instead of old solutions in a new era.

I do believe that our valley, our city, our lives are too important to leave decisions in the hands of others without questioning them. I value the questions. I appreciate the work that people do to collect information and share it. I’m grateful for all the people who care about what happens here.

Does the CEO or the stockholders of Compliance Energy care about Port Alberni?

Barbara Cooper,

Port Alberni