Journal of a Living Lady #132

 

Nancy White Kelly

 

Troubles. We all have them. Physical problems. Financial difficulties. Things break. At our house, when one appliance goes out, you can count on two more. We recently replaced an ancient stove and a dead microwave. Next on the agenda is a refrigerator, but we are trying to hold off until Charlie gets through this last semester of college. The old fridge is making loud, vibrating sounds, foreboding its imminent demise I am sure. Buddy and I have been looking at new refrigerators just in case.  In all likelihood a new refrigerator will out-live us and so we are basically shopping for Charlie a refrigerator. Refrigerators have come a long way since I was a child. We called them iceboxes back then. Still do sometimes.  I even remember the ice man.

 

His name was Big James. He was very black and muscular. James would drive though the neighborhood in an old truck which always dripped water. In the back of that truck bed were huge squares of ice. James would use heavy metal tongs to pick up what looked like a solid block of iridescent concrete and move it to our personal ice box. I got careless one time while using a wooden handled ice pick to chip away at the massive block. That pick penetrated deeply between my thumb and index finger leaving a deep hole and a tiny circular scar.  It is inches away from the wrist scar. When doctors see that one, they immediately assume I tried to slash my wrist at some desperately low point in my life. When I was five-years-old, I ran  to greet Big James one afternoon hoping he would let me have a little piece of hot ice.  He did. In my elation,  I fell over a big yard rock with a coke bottle in my right hand. My poor mother jerked me up in her arms and carried me several blocks to the local physician. The blood trail on the new white sidewalk never fully washed out. The long gash required innumerable stitches

 

Eventually my parents bought an electric G.E. refrigerator that had a separate compartment for ice and frozen food. It was small compared to today’s models. No ice picks were needed. We used ice trays, metal ones that had a lever you pulled back to loosen the ice.

 

A few years later, right after we married, Buddy bought a refrigerator with a modern ice maker.  I loved it. No ice picks. No trays to fill and spill. Still, if you wanted a drink of water, a trip to the faucet was needed. Now the “Your wish is my command,”  self-defrosting refrigerators give crushed ice and water without opening the door.

 

Refrigerators today cost about a  thousand dollars more than the old family ice box. The financial gurus say we need to spur the economy with big ticket purchases. The Kellys are about to make our contribution.   Living on planet earth is expensive, but look at the positive side. We all get one free trip each year around the sun.

 

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nancyk@alltel.net         Order the new book, Journal of a Living Lady. $14.95 plus $3 s/h. P.O. Box 285, Young Harris, GA 30582.