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Early-Day Ice Monsterby
Delbert Trew | |
Recently
a scene in a fiction novel, taking place in the late 1930s, triggered a memory
long forgotten. The scene included a family buying a block of ice from a vending
machine at an ice house.
In the old days, one of the chores associated
with a weekly trip to Perryton
each Saturday was to make sure we had a galvanized wash tub and an old quilt in
the trunk of our car. These items were absolutely necessary in order to purchase
a block of ice in town and drive 15 miles home on dirt roads and still have enough
unmelted ice left for our ice box. |
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I
can't remember exactly when we became addicted to iced tea. To the hardworking
men of that time, iced tea was a must. I also don't remember how Mother made iced
tea; she must have boiled tea leaves on the stove and then added water. I do remember
all coffee grounds and tea leaves were saved in a Folger's coffee can to place
around her house plants.
I can barely remember a man sitting on a wooden
deck in front of the ice house chewing tobacco, who took your order, then fetched
the size of ice block you wanted. He used ice tongs and wore a leather apron as
he placed the ice block into the wash tub in your car trunk. Later,
a vending device was installed at the dock where you placed coins in a slot and
punched a button indicating the size of ice block you wanted. As a little boy
I stood on the deck feeling the vibrations of the compressor making the ice somewhere
in the bowels of the building. Ice-making was a process few could explain at that
time. |
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When Mother dropped
the right coins into the slot and pushed the button, the vibrations changed to
loud thumps and an ever-louder roar as the ice block dropped into a chute and
came thundering to the front. An opening covered with a canvas flap stood beside
the coin slots where the ice block would burst through and stop.
My little
boy imagination ran wild as I pictured the ice monster living inside the building,
growling and threshing about as he spit out the block of ice into the chute. I
just knew the monster would come out the chute and drag me back inside into his
freezing lair. I'm sure my eyes were big as silver dollars as I anxiously awaited
the outcome.
Suddenly the canvas curtain flipped upward as the ice block
arrived in the chute. I waited, holding my breath until I was sure the ice monster
would not follow.
The ordeal or adventure ended quietly as we loaded the
ice into our car trunk. When we drove off, I sighed with relief. I had escaped
the ice monster one more time.
© Delbert Trew
"It's
All Trew" January
12, 2010 Column
E-mail: trewblue@centramedia.net. |
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