We had yet another celebration this weekend, as our oldest “triplet” turned 20 years old. So again, all twenty-something of us gathered to party him out of his teens and into his twenties.
As I prepared the meal and made preparations for the early supper, I realized I was going to need ice. No matter how many refrigerators I have, I still need ice. I called and asked one of the kids in town to pick up a bag of ice. And as I continued to cut up vegetables and pat 30 hamburger patties into shape I “pondered” times when I was a child and ice was not so readily obtainable.
Growing up in the fifties here in Kosciusko, we didn’t have an ice machine on every corner or ice makers in fancy refrigerators. That is, we didn’t.
We lived on the outskirts of town in an old clapboard house with not very many amenities or appliances. We had an old icebox; the kind that you put a block of ice in the bottom to keep foods cool, not frozen, with a drain at the bottom to take care of the melting ice. If we needed ice for our ice tea, we would take an ice pick and break off a small chunk for the glass of tea.
This quaint cooler, and that is really what it was, had no lead to electricity, but was as the portable ice chest is today that we used to keep our drinks cold. The provisions inside the cooler were never really frosty but cool. At this time, we knew no difference and were happy to have this makeshift refrigerator. We kept our necessities cool: milk, meat, vegetables and anything that needed chilling.
How did we make the ice? Well, some of you may be from my time and if you are, you may remember the “ice house.” This big brick building stood in the middle of town on an off street. There was a covered front porch that ran the length of the building and it emanated a feeling of dampness and cool. My daddy took me inside several times and I remember it being a big stone-like enclosed room right in the center of the old building that was cold and had big blocks of ice covered in burlap and sawdust to keep it frozen. The huge blocks of ice were cut with a special saw into blocks that would fit inside the home ice boxes.
Sometimes we would pick up our ice for a week. One big block would last 5-7 days and cost about $2.50. But most of the time our ice was delivered by a box truck right to our door. They would bring it inside for my mama and lift it with the big black iron ice tongs. Some of my kin that lived out in the country had built their own ice houses.
My grandmother had one It was a small rock shelter like that of a fruit cellar but more insulated, and the ice was kept down there covered in burlap, sawdust and broom straw, and would keep for weeks even in the hot weather.
Now I have two refrigerators underneath my carport and one inside, as well as an ice machine on my counter. So convenient, with no more chipping off the block, melting in the floor or having it delivered.
You can have an ice maker with so many different sizes and shapes of ice — cubes, squares, balls, tiny rock-like pieces or anything you can think of. There are refrigerators on top, or bottom, with ice and freezer on the other. I have even seen refrigerators with computer screens on the doors! Isn’t technology great?
What do you think our ancestors would have thought of these new freezer contraptions? They called the days of ice boxes the “good ole days,” but I believe right now is the good ole days!
