For Robby the morning always came early. As his parents had to be at work by 8 am,
all was in motion in their third floor tenement well before 6:30. But Robby was
almost always awake before his parents; often reading boys’ fantasy novels.
Therefore, the eight-year-old had been taught how to make the morning’s coffee.The
percolator pot was easy enough to fill with coffee and water. All he need do was to
place the pot on the stove top and turn up the temperature to the mark that had
been drawn by his father.

Having no central heating, the flat would be a bit chilly in the winter
when they awoke. The stove that provided all the heat for the apartment would
have been turned low at bedtime to conserve oil. The oil was provided to the
stove from a large glass jug that had to be tipped upside down into the dispenser
stand in much the same way that water would be fed into water coolers decades
later. Robby’s father would have to carry the jugs up the narrow stairways to
the third floor from the oil tank in the basement. Neither money nor effort
should be wasted by having the heat too high during the night.

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