An old lady in Akron asked me to leave my brushes on her porch for luck, and I did it without asking why
She told me her dad swept chimneys for 40 years and swore the soot caught in the bristles kept the next house from catching fire, so now I'm wondering if any of you have heard that one before or if she was just messing with the new guy.
Man, that is wild and I love it. I always figured the old lucky brush thing was just a goofy tradition guys did to mess with rookies, like sending someone to fetch a left handed broom or a bucket of steam. But a few years back I helped clean out my grandpa's garage and found a coffee can full of old brushes he saved from every job he ever did, and my aunt said he swore the same thing, that the soot in the bristles was like a good luck charm for the next house. Hearing your story makes me think this was a real thing that got passed around crews for real reasons, maybe because soot in the bristles did cut down on sparks or something nobody wrote down. Now I kind of regret tossing that can without looking closer at it. That lady in Akron knew what she was talking about and I would have handed over my brushes too.