WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Strange Daze: The Iceman Cometh
byVanderleunonAugust 2, 2021
Ode to the Ice ManThe iceman, who wore leather vests and a wet piece of sackcloth slung over the right shoulder, and once they had slid the ice into the box, they invariably slipped the sacking off and stood there waiting, dripping, for their money. From the late 19th century to the mid-20th century, the iceman (and ice woman during wartime) was a common sight in cities and towns where he would make daily rounds delivering ice for iceboxes before the electric domestic refrigerator became commonplace.
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.– George Orwell, 1984
And here you are patiently waiting for lockdowns to end. After we’ve flattened the curve, expanded contract tracing, immunized everyone, sorted out vaccine passports, given booster shots or whatever the goalpost is this week, there’ll be some new problem requiring us to extend or resume lockdowns, just like Stalin could always find new traitors needing a good purge.
Our overlords will never give up their power voluntarily. They will always discover a disaster to justify restrictions even more tyrannical than those that came before.
They will not stop until they are stopped.
‘They Were Relentless’: How I Learned Respect for Our Communist Media You and I might consider the MSM something of a joke. But don’t be fooled. In the midst of mediocrities, you’ll also find experts and fanatics. You’ll meet people schooled in opposition research, psychological warfare, and emotional manipulation. You don’t have to like these facts. (In fact, you shouldn’t.) But you must respect reality. The reporter who has just called you with a list of personal questions might be a goofball — or a trained and skilled interrogator. Assume, to be on the safe side, that he is very likely a deeply damaged, ideologically obsessed, and angry human being. One who cares nothing about you, fairness, or even your life
Our ICU is half-full, because half the nursing staff left or quit after COVID 1.0 due to workload burnout. So half the beds are full, with the normal ICU patients (intubated, post-surgical, heart attacks, strokes, major trauma, etc.). The other half are unstaffed, nightly, because we can’t find replacement ICU nurses at anything less than exorbitant rates, so they are unusable beds. AFAIK, we don’t have a single COVID patient in the ICU, but if we did, it wouldn’t be more than 1 or 2. The bigger problem is that this backs up ICU patients into the ER for days on end, and so new patients can’t get in for hours, even for serious problems.
The Racial Reckoning’s New Normal: 50 Murders Per Day – As you can see, compared with 2019, 2020 was a bloody year, going all the way back to January and worsening during the first couple of months of the pandemic. Yet, the most extraordinary fact of 2020 is that for the seven-plus months from George Floyd’s death to the end of the year, the United States averaged 50.5 murders per day, up 41% from the 35.7 per day during the same long period in 2019. The consistency of the gap between 2020 and 2019 during the Racial Reckoning is striking.
Political cults don’t return to religion, rather they find hidden meanings, pseudoscientific or pagan, in the secular world. They make a religion of politics and they find their theology and scripture in daily events, in pop culture references, in sociology, and class, gender, and race. What appears perverse and senseless to you can seem miraculous to them. Men and women changing genders. Political messiahs who promise to change the world. Secret conspiracies and revelations only they are privy to.
The Most Expensive Food In The World: 13 Costly Food ItemsYet the priciest caviar is Strottarga Bianco. Sprinkled with 22 karat gold, this albino fish egg caviar comes from the Siberian Albino Sturgeon. A single teaspoon of Strottarga Bianco can cost as much as $37,000! In general, the paler the caviar color, the more expensive caviar it is.
Look at Washington’s, now Biden’s, foreign policy. The Russians and Chinese work on a trade route over the Arctic to have a shorter route than through Suez. Biden hyperventilate, Views With Alarm, and sends warships to Confront Russia. How do you confront a trade route ? No end upset with China; Biden gets a pack of poodle countries to send warships to deter Beijing in the Indian Ocean. Deter it from what? What do they think China is going to do to the Indian Ocean? Poison it? Drain it? Now we have all sorts of poodleties driving warships around the Black Sea, to Send a Message to Russia. Why not Western Union? Gmail? Little boys saying, “Nya nya nya.” Really. They are just like teen-age gangs with their stupid turf wars.
One Lost Methyl Group = Huge Amounts of Food Production In rice and potatoes, the crop yields went up by about 50% in field trials. Grain size in the rice plants didn’t change, nor did the height of the plants – they just produced a lot more rice grains in general.
Yes, the destruction continues apace. Still, there are small instances of cosmic justice.
The best the women’s soccer team can do now is to place third. To the knee-taking, country, anthem and flag disrespecting majority, I hope you return empty handed. To the brave few who stood with dignity and refused the childish display of churlishness, I say thank you for the respect you showed. I’m sorry you were teamed with such a bunch of losers in the truest sense of the word.
gwbnycAugust 2, 2021, 8:05 AM
I grew up in Ohio but we visited my mother’s family in North Carolina for a couple weeks every summer-
My grandfather supported his sister and her 5 children as she was rendered husbandless, the details unknown to me. They lived in a “quarter house”- a small square structure sometimes with one corner set in as a little porch. Her’s stood abandoned until perhaps 15 years ago. Her name was “Addie”, so she was “Aunt Addie”, but down south there were three pronunciations that were used concurrently, maybe still: “Ant”, “Awnt”, and “Aint”. She was Aint Addie.
“quarter” refers to “slave quarter”, the term going back across three centuries.
When I was a youngster, six or so, I recall noting on a visit that her “ice box” was a real box with a huge block of ice in it. c.1959.
On some trips we went to the ice house in Ahoskie to buy a block to make ice cream. It was wet, there was sawdust strewn on the floor, and a strong odor of ammonia pervaded.
I still refer to a refrigerator as an ice box.
Sam L.August 2, 2021, 8:27 AM
‘They Were Relentless’: How I Learned Respect for Our Communist Media.”
I despise, detest, and totally distrust the “media”. I don’t KNOW if the media is/are a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat Party, or if it’s the other way round, but it’s OBVIOUS that they are in CAHOOTS. They also sleep in the same beds.
Yep gwbnyc, I remember ice boxes as well. I was born in Ohio &, when I was around 8, we moved to south Florida, the northern most state below the Mason Dixon line.
The trailer on the property we bought in Coral Gables, had an ice box and, as ice boxes were still somewhat common but ice men were fewer and fewer, we’d drive to the ice house to buy our block. I also remember the strong ammonia smell at the ice house.
My grandmother told the story, from the very early days of television, of a time when the ice man who delivered her cube was none other than Gorgeous George, the professional wrestler. It seems he had a day job back then.
JWM
enn essAugust 2, 2021, 9:48 AM
It wasn’t all that long ago in the overall scope of things, maybe 50 or so short years, I remember visiting my cousins in Champaign, Ill. Ice was delivered every 2 days in the Ice wagon, you went out and told the guy how much you wanted. And yes, it was pulled by a horse, along cobblestone streets. Consider the the DC-3 has been flying for longer than that.
Lance de BoyleAugust 2, 2021, 10:11 AM
The Ice Man…. We’d be running around under the burning St. Louis summer sun, tar oozing up through the brown street pebbles, and here he’d come. We’d gather around. He’d slide open a door to reveal a cave of ice.
“Wow! Lookit that!”
He’d stab off big chips and pass them around. Felt like we were in heaven. Held each chunk like a treasure. What a guy.
And let’s not forget the Egg Man and his huge woven basket, and the Milk Man—Pevely Dairy—with his zinc coated basket. Pop off the paper lid and drink the cream.
“Later, Ma.”
“Where you going?”
“To play.”
“Don’t poke your eye out.”
Then we’d throw rocks at each other.
“Ow!”
“Big baby!”
Sure we all had concussions. But we LIKED it.
tired dogAugust 2, 2021, 10:21 AM
Ice-man, Egg-man, we had a ‘junkie’.
Flat bed old truck, cowbells jangling on a rope across the back, he’d buy your metal scrap and haul it away. Could hear him coming from blocks away.
And a ‘sharpie’ too. He’d sharpen damn near any edged tool for small coin and down the road he’d go.
Dang, now you guys are making me pop memories.
Visiting my friend’s grandmother in Hamtramck, Mi. (Polish town, Detroit), circa 1960, and seeing the guy they called the sheeny, with a horse-drawn wagon collecting rags and junk in the alley. I remember the small of horse poop, and fat metallic flies. As a side note, I sorta’ got curious on the word “sheeny”, so I just looked it up on wik. It’s a slur. Big surprise. Folks were plain-spoken, then.
JWM
ghostsniperAugust 2, 2021, 11:25 AM
In Gettysburg in the early 60’s we had a breadman, milkman, and a Charles chips man and they came around once a week cept the milkman came every day or 2.
Once, when I was about 9, my brother and me were throwing the baseball back and forth when the breadman came by. He worked at Valley Pride. He was a young dood and he had a baseball glove in the truck. He grabbed his glove and came over in the yard and told my brother to throw the ball to him and he did. He threw the ball at, not to, my brother, kinda hard, and hit him in the head. My brother (age 8) fell on the ground crying. I was laughing cause my brothers head looked funny when the ball hit it.
The breadman said, “Quit crying like a sissy and throw the ball back.”, and my brother did. Then the breadman looked at me and said, “So, you thought it was funny huh?”, and I started running away. He hit me in the back and I went sprawling in the gravel driveway. My arm was bleeding but I didn’t cry. I was 9 remember. The breadman was laughing his ass off and my brother was still crying and he had a goose egg over his right eye.
I told the breadman he was an asshole and he got mad and came after me. I was barefooted on the gravel but my feets were tough so I took off. The breadman hit the gravel with his shiny black shoes and wiped out and lost it. He went down. I was on the other side of the yard and started laughing at the breadman as he policed his shit up off the driveway.
His arm was covered with gravel and was bleeding. He was picking gravel out of his arm and saying, “Ouch….ouch….ouch.” I was all the way one the other side of the pool and knew he couldn’t catch me so I laughed some more. He was pissed and knew he couldn’t catch me so he said, “The next time I see you I’m gonna break your neck.” Then he got in his truck and left.
I saw the breadman’s ticket book laying in the gravel, it must have fallen out of his shirt pocket. He wrote your order on the ticket book and gave you a copy. I told my mother about him and she saw the big red mark on my back and my brother’s goose egg. She called Valley Pride and got the breadman fired. The next week the breadman was an older dood and he didn’t have a baseball glove. He gave each of us 5 kids a little chocolate cake in a plastic wrapper. We warshed it down with a drink from the hose.
Donald SensingAugust 2, 2021, 11:53 AM
I once thought that the Left had some actual goal they were working toward and a plan to achieve an end state that they had fully described to themselves and understood. Boy, was that bravo-sierra. They have no goal at all other than grabbing as much power and control over others as they can get. For what end? They need to objective, they just get a near-sexual thrill out of dominating other people politically, socially, economically.
And they have no “plan” to do that. They simply react as opportunities present themselves. They hate the present ordering of all of America because they see themselves as neither wealthy nor as powerful as they think they should be. So they destroy what is now and think nothing of it except how it will improve their lot later. But for vast numbers of them, the destruction of the status quo is not how to achieve some future goal. Is is the goal.
MissyAugust 2, 2021, 12:00 PM
Dog food was delivered (horse meat in cans) as was bread, milk, potato chips, meat from the butcher and department store purchases even though we could have carried them home. It just wasn’t done then. The deliverymen had uniforms! We always ran to greet them. The other wonderful memory is Coming home from school and going through the garage and into the laundry room where ironing happened most afternoons was a sensory delight. Clouds of fragrant steam, whiffs of starch, and a sense of great calm and order prevailed. Miss Bessie held forth there and would let me sit and listen to her “stories” (melodrama with peculiar organ riffs) on the radio while she “arned.” Heady stuff for an eight year old in a plaid jumper.
twolaneflashAugust 2, 2021, 12:03 PM
Iceman by Filthy McNasty
“Iceman, Iceman, I’ve got the coldest ice in town.
Iceman, Iceman, The women like it better by the pound.
The lady living over there across the street
She gets one piece and it lasts a whole week.
Iceman, Iceman, I’ve got the coldest ice in town.
Iceman, Iceman, The women like it better by the pound.
Now I’m the best iceman in these blocks
I’ll give you a good piece just open your box.
Iceman, Iceman, I’ve got the coldest ice in town.
Iceman, Iceman, The women like it better by the pound.
I’m telling you this mamma and I’m telling you up front
You get the right size piece, it’ll last a whole month
Iceman, Iceman, I’ve got the coldest ice in town.
Iceman, Iceman, The women like it better by the pound.
I’ve got some of the hardest ice you ever felt
When I put in your box it ain’t gonna melt.
Iceman, Iceman, I’ve got the coldest ice in town.
Iceman, Iceman, The women like it better by the pound.
The lady in the house that’s painted green
She’s got a good box but she won’t keep it clean
Iceman, Iceman, I’ve got the coldest ice in town.
Iceman, Iceman, The women like it better by the pound.
When it’s a hot summer day and you can’t stand the heat
You can get yourself a piece and it’s gonna cool your meat.
Iceman, Iceman, I’ve got the coldest ice in town.
Iceman, Iceman, The women like it better by the pound.”
Lance de BoyleAugust 2, 2021, 12:46 PM
I wonder if it’s too late to become an ice man?
Lucretia Borgia de Boyle hasn’t wanted her meat cooled for quite some time.
“Hey, Toots, want me to cool your meat?”
“What did you say?! And don’t call me ‘Toots'” [where the heck does the period go? Vanderleun would know.]
[Uh oh. Think fast, Lance.]
“I said, ‘Want a stool for your feet?”
“You just leave my feet out of it.”
“Okay. Okay. F%$# your feet. Let ’em dangle, for all I care.”
In Gettysburg in the early 60’s we had a breadman, milkman, and a Charles chips man and they came around once a week cept the milkman came every day or 2.
Like you, Ghostsniper, in the 1960s in Grand Rapids, MI, we had the milkman, and the Charles chips man; I recall those big ol’ Charles chips cans fondly, and their chips, they were tasty; but we didn’t have the breadman, though my Grandpa Pete had a horse drawn bread wagon in Holland, MI back in late 1930’s and early 1940s. When our milkman came by, which was daily, he’d let me jump in his truck and pretend I was a milkman. Once, when he was up the driveway delivering the milk, I think I was about 8 years old, I jumped in his truck, climbed in the seat, and made like I was driving away. Right up there on the dash, was a nice size lever, and I thought I’d give that thing a try. The next thing I knew, I was rolling backwards down our slightly inclined street. At first I kinda panicked, but ended up having the presence of mind to yank that nice size lever back to where it had been. The milkman was no the wiser, but I definitely came away a bit wiser.
OK jwm, what are they?
You wouldn’t be talking about the silver insulated box that sat by the backdoor where the milkman put the milk? My grandparents house (a Sears house) had a coal chute door on the outside of the house at the driveway and the actual chute spilled out on the floor in the basement next to the big ol cast iron furnace that had metal ductwork that fed heat to all the rooms above.
Casey KlahnAugust 2, 2021, 3:19 PM
I very much hate to say this, but the photo that looks like a Nazi shooting prisoners, is actually a corporatist shooting employees for not being gay enough.
We still have the convection fridge here, unused, but the new refrigerator I bought this Spring is a modern wonder.
Mike SeyleAugust 2, 2021, 3:36 PM
Went to the meat market in San Saba, TX when young to get several hens for my grandmother. The butcher shop in San Saba dipped chickens in yellow wax to preserve them, or keep the flies off, until they were bought. So I brought back two yellow-waxed chickens. Peeled right off. San Saba is where my mom, when a young child, jumped off the diving board into the river-fed swimming pool with an inner tube around her waist. She landed upside down and darn near drowned before righting herself. Glad she did, or I’d be someone else.
Ghostsniper:
A milk chute was a breadbox size compartment for milk delivery in the wall near the kitchen door. It had a latching door outside, and one indoors. My grandparents’ milk company gave out an order key that they left in the chute for the milk man. The key was a stack of cardboard tabs, on a pivot. You selected out the tabs for the stuff you wanted, and left the rest in the stack. When I spent the weekends there I’d always sneak the chocolate milk tab into the order. They let me get away with it.
JWM
Lance de BoyleAugust 2, 2021, 3:53 PM
“You can get yourself a piece and it’s gonna cool your meat.” Great poem!
Wonder if I can become an iceman.
My wife, Lucretia Borgia de Boyle, hasn’t wanted her meat cooled for quite some time.
“Hey, Toots. How ’bout I cool your meat?”
“What did you say!?”
[Uh oh. Think, Lance. Think.]
“I said, my little dove, how ’bout a stool for your feet.”
“Just leave my feet out of it. They don’t need any help from you. Just go outside and throw rocks at kids.” [Dang! She’s reading my comments!!!]
“Fine. Okie dokie.” [You and your Clydesdales can go f*&^ off for all I care.]
Speaking of the milk chute, did any of you guys had to climb through one to get in your house because mom went to the grocery store and the doors were locked? I never tried it, but my skinny as a rail brother did.
gwbnycAugust 2, 2021, 5:54 PM
had a milk chute.
we had a clothes chute in the house, too- little door in the wall on the second floor to a hamper in the basement. had casters.
brinsterAugust 3, 2021, 6:41 AM
When the old man moved us out of the Bronx to Valley Stream, LI after my two older sisters were stabbed by a gang of Puerto Rican girls (they lived), the milk box in the back was wooden, later replaced by a modern aluminum one. Krug delivered baked goods, Charles Chips came by periodically. A guy came by every so often to sharpen your tools. We had three (count em) ice cream men come through every day in the summer: Good Humor, Bungalow Bar and American Bar. And Mr. Softee came later. Walked to the drug store to buy my mother a pack of Viceroys because they were selling them 2 cents less than everyplace else. Played stick ball on our block. Miss those days. Everything felt “RIGHT.” That could be because it was being a kid, but things were so different then.
AnonymousAugust 3, 2021, 8:42 AM
“The other half are unstaffed, nightly, because we can’t find replacement ICU nurses at anything less than exorbitant rates, so they are unusable beds. ”
let’s don’t forget that in the middle of all this talk about people not being able to get treatment, that some dumbasses are FIRING frontline drs and nurses WHO WORKED THROUGH THE ENTIRE 1st wave of the pandemic because they are skeptical of the “vaccine” and would prefer to wait a few years before taking it.
twolaneflashAugust 3, 2021, 9:03 AM
My father began married life in 1936 working in the Georgia dairy owned by the town’s cotton mill owner, who lived in NY. The cotton mill owned everything in town: jobs, houses, utilities, school, hospital, dentist, streets, company store, and a dairy. The dairy was the mill owner’s pride and joy. His top cow, Green Meadow Melba, had won the most coveted prize in the dairy industry. When she died she was buried in the middle of a pasture, with a huge monument of a cow over her grave, and a tall, ornate iron fence around the site. Thanks to his obsession with his cows, which were hand milked, no milking machines allowed, the town had the best milk and butter in the world. My parents began our farm’s milk cows with a granddaughter of Green Meadow Melba. The dairy was closed when the owner died and his children took control…from NY. The mill has changed hands several times since. The last time I drove by, the fence is still in the middle of the pasture, but the inside has been allowed to completely grow over the monument and grave.
DeNihilistAugust 3, 2021, 1:00 PM
10 pounds per gallon of water, figure with expansion, that block must be in the 30 pound range.
Look at his grip on the tongs, like he is holding air.
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Green Pants Interior by Klahn
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Duty, Beauty, Liberty, Country, Honor, Family, Faith — Plus a few simple easy to follow rules for guys
Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea
They thought great thoughts about liberty
Poets wrote down words that did fit
Writers wrote books
Thinkers thought about it
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
Many’s the road I have walked upon
Many’s the hour between dusk and dawn
Many’s the time
Many’s the mile
I see it all now
Through the eyes of a child
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
And close your eyes
Leave it all for a while
Leave the world
And your worries behind
You will build on whatever is real
And wake up each day
To a new waking dream
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Change, change come over
Change come over
Talkin’ about a change
Change, change
Change come over, now
Change, change, change come over
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
And here you are patiently waiting for lockdowns to end. After we’ve flattened the curve, expanded contract tracing, immunized everyone, sorted out vaccine passports, given booster shots or whatever the goalpost is this week, there’ll be some new problem requiring us to extend or resume lockdowns, just like Stalin could always find new traitors needing a good purge.
‘They Were Relentless’: How I Learned Respect for Our Communist Media You and I might consider the MSM something of a joke. But don’t be fooled. In the midst of mediocrities, you’ll also find experts and fanatics. You’ll meet people schooled in opposition research, psychological warfare, and emotional manipulation. You don’t have to like these facts. (In fact, you shouldn’t.) But you must respect reality. The reporter who has just called you with a list of personal questions might be a goofball — or a trained and skilled interrogator. Assume, to be on the safe side, that he is very likely a deeply damaged, ideologically obsessed, and angry human being. One who cares nothing about you, fairness, or even your life
The Racial Reckoning’s New Normal: 50 Murders Per Day – As you can see, compared with 2019, 2020 was a bloody year, going all the way back to January and worsening during the first couple of months of the pandemic. Yet, the most extraordinary fact of 2020 is that for the seven-plus months from George Floyd’s death to the end of the year, the United States averaged 50.5 murders per day, up 41% from the 35.7 per day during the same long period in 2019. The consistency of the gap between 2020 and 2019 during the Racial Reckoning is striking.
The Most Expensive Food In The World: 13 Costly Food Items Yet the priciest caviar is Strottarga Bianco. Sprinkled with 22 karat gold, this albino fish egg caviar comes from the Siberian Albino Sturgeon. A single teaspoon of Strottarga Bianco can cost as much as $37,000! In general, the paler the caviar color, the more expensive caviar it is.
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
Yes, the destruction continues apace. Still, there are small instances of cosmic justice.
The best the women’s soccer team can do now is to place third. To the knee-taking, country, anthem and flag disrespecting majority, I hope you return empty handed. To the brave few who stood with dignity and refused the childish display of churlishness, I say thank you for the respect you showed. I’m sorry you were teamed with such a bunch of losers in the truest sense of the word.
I grew up in Ohio but we visited my mother’s family in North Carolina for a couple weeks every summer-
My grandfather supported his sister and her 5 children as she was rendered husbandless, the details unknown to me. They lived in a “quarter house”- a small square structure sometimes with one corner set in as a little porch. Her’s stood abandoned until perhaps 15 years ago. Her name was “Addie”, so she was “Aunt Addie”, but down south there were three pronunciations that were used concurrently, maybe still: “Ant”, “Awnt”, and “Aint”. She was Aint Addie.
“quarter” refers to “slave quarter”, the term going back across three centuries.
When I was a youngster, six or so, I recall noting on a visit that her “ice box” was a real box with a huge block of ice in it. c.1959.
On some trips we went to the ice house in Ahoskie to buy a block to make ice cream. It was wet, there was sawdust strewn on the floor, and a strong odor of ammonia pervaded.
I still refer to a refrigerator as an ice box.
‘They Were Relentless’: How I Learned Respect for Our Communist Media.”
I despise, detest, and totally distrust the “media”. I don’t KNOW if the media is/are a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat Party, or if it’s the other way round, but it’s OBVIOUS that they are in CAHOOTS. They also sleep in the same beds.
Yep gwbnyc, I remember ice boxes as well. I was born in Ohio &, when I was around 8, we moved to south Florida, the northern most state below the Mason Dixon line.
The trailer on the property we bought in Coral Gables, had an ice box and, as ice boxes were still somewhat common but ice men were fewer and fewer, we’d drive to the ice house to buy our block. I also remember the strong ammonia smell at the ice house.
My grandmother told the story, from the very early days of television, of a time when the ice man who delivered her cube was none other than Gorgeous George, the professional wrestler. It seems he had a day job back then.
JWM
It wasn’t all that long ago in the overall scope of things, maybe 50 or so short years, I remember visiting my cousins in Champaign, Ill. Ice was delivered every 2 days in the Ice wagon, you went out and told the guy how much you wanted. And yes, it was pulled by a horse, along cobblestone streets. Consider the the DC-3 has been flying for longer than that.
The Ice Man…. We’d be running around under the burning St. Louis summer sun, tar oozing up through the brown street pebbles, and here he’d come. We’d gather around. He’d slide open a door to reveal a cave of ice.
“Wow! Lookit that!”
He’d stab off big chips and pass them around. Felt like we were in heaven. Held each chunk like a treasure. What a guy.
And let’s not forget the Egg Man and his huge woven basket, and the Milk Man—Pevely Dairy—with his zinc coated basket. Pop off the paper lid and drink the cream.
“Later, Ma.”
“Where you going?”
“To play.”
“Don’t poke your eye out.”
Then we’d throw rocks at each other.
“Ow!”
“Big baby!”
Sure we all had concussions. But we LIKED it.
Ice-man, Egg-man, we had a ‘junkie’.
Flat bed old truck, cowbells jangling on a rope across the back, he’d buy your metal scrap and haul it away. Could hear him coming from blocks away.
And a ‘sharpie’ too. He’d sharpen damn near any edged tool for small coin and down the road he’d go.
Dang, now you guys are making me pop memories.
Visiting my friend’s grandmother in Hamtramck, Mi. (Polish town, Detroit), circa 1960, and seeing the guy they called the sheeny, with a horse-drawn wagon collecting rags and junk in the alley. I remember the small of horse poop, and fat metallic flies. As a side note, I sorta’ got curious on the word “sheeny”, so I just looked it up on wik. It’s a slur. Big surprise. Folks were plain-spoken, then.
JWM
In Gettysburg in the early 60’s we had a breadman, milkman, and a Charles chips man and they came around once a week cept the milkman came every day or 2.
Once, when I was about 9, my brother and me were throwing the baseball back and forth when the breadman came by. He worked at Valley Pride. He was a young dood and he had a baseball glove in the truck. He grabbed his glove and came over in the yard and told my brother to throw the ball to him and he did. He threw the ball at, not to, my brother, kinda hard, and hit him in the head. My brother (age 8) fell on the ground crying. I was laughing cause my brothers head looked funny when the ball hit it.
The breadman said, “Quit crying like a sissy and throw the ball back.”, and my brother did. Then the breadman looked at me and said, “So, you thought it was funny huh?”, and I started running away. He hit me in the back and I went sprawling in the gravel driveway. My arm was bleeding but I didn’t cry. I was 9 remember. The breadman was laughing his ass off and my brother was still crying and he had a goose egg over his right eye.
I told the breadman he was an asshole and he got mad and came after me. I was barefooted on the gravel but my feets were tough so I took off. The breadman hit the gravel with his shiny black shoes and wiped out and lost it. He went down. I was on the other side of the yard and started laughing at the breadman as he policed his shit up off the driveway.
His arm was covered with gravel and was bleeding. He was picking gravel out of his arm and saying, “Ouch….ouch….ouch.” I was all the way one the other side of the pool and knew he couldn’t catch me so I laughed some more. He was pissed and knew he couldn’t catch me so he said, “The next time I see you I’m gonna break your neck.” Then he got in his truck and left.
I saw the breadman’s ticket book laying in the gravel, it must have fallen out of his shirt pocket. He wrote your order on the ticket book and gave you a copy. I told my mother about him and she saw the big red mark on my back and my brother’s goose egg. She called Valley Pride and got the breadman fired. The next week the breadman was an older dood and he didn’t have a baseball glove. He gave each of us 5 kids a little chocolate cake in a plastic wrapper. We warshed it down with a drink from the hose.
I once thought that the Left had some actual goal they were working toward and a plan to achieve an end state that they had fully described to themselves and understood. Boy, was that bravo-sierra. They have no goal at all other than grabbing as much power and control over others as they can get. For what end? They need to objective, they just get a near-sexual thrill out of dominating other people politically, socially, economically.
And they have no “plan” to do that. They simply react as opportunities present themselves. They hate the present ordering of all of America because they see themselves as neither wealthy nor as powerful as they think they should be. So they destroy what is now and think nothing of it except how it will improve their lot later. But for vast numbers of them, the destruction of the status quo is not how to achieve some future goal. Is is the goal.
Dog food was delivered (horse meat in cans) as was bread, milk, potato chips, meat from the butcher and department store purchases even though we could have carried them home. It just wasn’t done then. The deliverymen had uniforms! We always ran to greet them. The other wonderful memory is Coming home from school and going through the garage and into the laundry room where ironing happened most afternoons was a sensory delight. Clouds of fragrant steam, whiffs of starch, and a sense of great calm and order prevailed. Miss Bessie held forth there and would let me sit and listen to her “stories” (melodrama with peculiar organ riffs) on the radio while she “arned.” Heady stuff for an eight year old in a plaid jumper.
Iceman by Filthy McNasty
“Iceman, Iceman, I’ve got the coldest ice in town.
Iceman, Iceman, The women like it better by the pound.
The lady living over there across the street
She gets one piece and it lasts a whole week.
Iceman, Iceman, I’ve got the coldest ice in town.
Iceman, Iceman, The women like it better by the pound.
Now I’m the best iceman in these blocks
I’ll give you a good piece just open your box.
Iceman, Iceman, I’ve got the coldest ice in town.
Iceman, Iceman, The women like it better by the pound.
I’m telling you this mamma and I’m telling you up front
You get the right size piece, it’ll last a whole month
Iceman, Iceman, I’ve got the coldest ice in town.
Iceman, Iceman, The women like it better by the pound.
I’ve got some of the hardest ice you ever felt
When I put in your box it ain’t gonna melt.
Iceman, Iceman, I’ve got the coldest ice in town.
Iceman, Iceman, The women like it better by the pound.
The lady in the house that’s painted green
She’s got a good box but she won’t keep it clean
Iceman, Iceman, I’ve got the coldest ice in town.
Iceman, Iceman, The women like it better by the pound.
When it’s a hot summer day and you can’t stand the heat
You can get yourself a piece and it’s gonna cool your meat.
Iceman, Iceman, I’ve got the coldest ice in town.
Iceman, Iceman, The women like it better by the pound.”
I wonder if it’s too late to become an ice man?
Lucretia Borgia de Boyle hasn’t wanted her meat cooled for quite some time.
“Hey, Toots, want me to cool your meat?”
“What did you say?! And don’t call me ‘Toots'” [where the heck does the period go? Vanderleun would know.]
[Uh oh. Think fast, Lance.]
“I said, ‘Want a stool for your feet?”
“You just leave my feet out of it.”
“Okay. Okay. F%$# your feet. Let ’em dangle, for all I care.”
In Gettysburg in the early 60’s we had a breadman, milkman, and a Charles chips man and they came around once a week cept the milkman came every day or 2.
Like you, Ghostsniper, in the 1960s in Grand Rapids, MI, we had the milkman, and the Charles chips man; I recall those big ol’ Charles chips cans fondly, and their chips, they were tasty; but we didn’t have the breadman, though my Grandpa Pete had a horse drawn bread wagon in Holland, MI back in late 1930’s and early 1940s. When our milkman came by, which was daily, he’d let me jump in his truck and pretend I was a milkman. Once, when he was up the driveway delivering the milk, I think I was about 8 years old, I jumped in his truck, climbed in the seat, and made like I was driving away. Right up there on the dash, was a nice size lever, and I thought I’d give that thing a try. The next thing I knew, I was rolling backwards down our slightly inclined street. At first I kinda panicked, but ended up having the presence of mind to yank that nice size lever back to where it had been. The milkman was no the wiser, but I definitely came away a bit wiser.
Since we’re doin’ nostalgia:
Milk chutes.
Every house had ’em.
JWM
OK jwm, what are they?
You wouldn’t be talking about the silver insulated box that sat by the backdoor where the milkman put the milk? My grandparents house (a Sears house) had a coal chute door on the outside of the house at the driveway and the actual chute spilled out on the floor in the basement next to the big ol cast iron furnace that had metal ductwork that fed heat to all the rooms above.
I very much hate to say this, but the photo that looks like a Nazi shooting prisoners, is actually a corporatist shooting employees for not being gay enough.
We still have the convection fridge here, unused, but the new refrigerator I bought this Spring is a modern wonder.
Went to the meat market in San Saba, TX when young to get several hens for my grandmother. The butcher shop in San Saba dipped chickens in yellow wax to preserve them, or keep the flies off, until they were bought. So I brought back two yellow-waxed chickens. Peeled right off. San Saba is where my mom, when a young child, jumped off the diving board into the river-fed swimming pool with an inner tube around her waist. She landed upside down and darn near drowned before righting herself. Glad she did, or I’d be someone else.
Ghostsniper:
A milk chute was a breadbox size compartment for milk delivery in the wall near the kitchen door. It had a latching door outside, and one indoors. My grandparents’ milk company gave out an order key that they left in the chute for the milk man. The key was a stack of cardboard tabs, on a pivot. You selected out the tabs for the stuff you wanted, and left the rest in the stack. When I spent the weekends there I’d always sneak the chocolate milk tab into the order. They let me get away with it.
JWM
“You can get yourself a piece and it’s gonna cool your meat.” Great poem!
Wonder if I can become an iceman.
My wife, Lucretia Borgia de Boyle, hasn’t wanted her meat cooled for quite some time.
“Hey, Toots. How ’bout I cool your meat?”
“What did you say!?”
[Uh oh. Think, Lance. Think.]
“I said, my little dove, how ’bout a stool for your feet.”
“Just leave my feet out of it. They don’t need any help from you. Just go outside and throw rocks at kids.” [Dang! She’s reading my comments!!!]
“Fine. Okie dokie.” [You and your Clydesdales can go f*&^ off for all I care.]
Tossing this out for consideration: one of the best things I’ve read recently.
https://orthosphere.wordpress.com/2021/08/02/i-dont-know-about-you-but-im-getting-nervous/
JWM
Speaking of the milk chute, did any of you guys had to climb through one to get in your house because mom went to the grocery store and the doors were locked? I never tried it, but my skinny as a rail brother did.
had a milk chute.
we had a clothes chute in the house, too- little door in the wall on the second floor to a hamper in the basement. had casters.
When the old man moved us out of the Bronx to Valley Stream, LI after my two older sisters were stabbed by a gang of Puerto Rican girls (they lived), the milk box in the back was wooden, later replaced by a modern aluminum one. Krug delivered baked goods, Charles Chips came by periodically. A guy came by every so often to sharpen your tools. We had three (count em) ice cream men come through every day in the summer: Good Humor, Bungalow Bar and American Bar. And Mr. Softee came later. Walked to the drug store to buy my mother a pack of Viceroys because they were selling them 2 cents less than everyplace else. Played stick ball on our block. Miss those days. Everything felt “RIGHT.” That could be because it was being a kid, but things were so different then.
“The other half are unstaffed, nightly, because we can’t find replacement ICU nurses at anything less than exorbitant rates, so they are unusable beds. ”
let’s don’t forget that in the middle of all this talk about people not being able to get treatment, that some dumbasses are FIRING frontline drs and nurses WHO WORKED THROUGH THE ENTIRE 1st wave of the pandemic because they are skeptical of the “vaccine” and would prefer to wait a few years before taking it.
My father began married life in 1936 working in the Georgia dairy owned by the town’s cotton mill owner, who lived in NY. The cotton mill owned everything in town: jobs, houses, utilities, school, hospital, dentist, streets, company store, and a dairy. The dairy was the mill owner’s pride and joy. His top cow, Green Meadow Melba, had won the most coveted prize in the dairy industry. When she died she was buried in the middle of a pasture, with a huge monument of a cow over her grave, and a tall, ornate iron fence around the site. Thanks to his obsession with his cows, which were hand milked, no milking machines allowed, the town had the best milk and butter in the world. My parents began our farm’s milk cows with a granddaughter of Green Meadow Melba. The dairy was closed when the owner died and his children took control…from NY. The mill has changed hands several times since. The last time I drove by, the fence is still in the middle of the pasture, but the inside has been allowed to completely grow over the monument and grave.
10 pounds per gallon of water, figure with expansion, that block must be in the 30 pound range.
Look at his grip on the tongs, like he is holding air.
Tough bastards back then.