I sat on a slatted bench staring longingly at a Good Times Ice freezer. The air was 85℉ with 100% humidity, dappled by partial sunshine.
The shade outside of Andy’s Market in Columbia, PA was nice, but there was no breeze at High Noon.
The blue and white ice box beckoned me to memories of icy relief.
I was feeling pretty swampy. It didn’t help that I had been riding my bike all around the river town searching for Andy’s.
Small, historic towns are relatively easy for me navigate. All it takes is a lot of opening, folding, and juggling my mental map. On that day it must’ve had some rips in it.
Once I found the little gem tucked along Ironville Pike behind a mature suburban neighborhood, I commenced finding a protein pick-me-up. I headed straight for the fridge with glass doors where I found my quarry: A potato roll sandwich loaded with Lebanon bologna and a slice of white American cheese.
As I balanced the stout little slider on my knee and applied mayonnaise from a foil packet, that ice freezer spoke to me—a bit coolly, I might add:
Would you like a chill job? Good Times could use a wiry little guy like you.
You ever wonder where all the ice comes from?
One question at a time, please, Mr. Freeze.
Not really, thanks.
For sure!
His questions reminded me of the sprawling cinder block facility down the street from Mom’s retirement apartment. At one time, this Lewisburg facility churned out tons of ice, literally.
It appears to be shuttered now and slated for renovation, likely a plumber’s garage or hip brew house. But it’ll probably be toppled.
I still wanted to know:
Whence cometh all this ice?
I imagined a high-tech operation in an industrial park where line workers in hair nets and white Dickies jumpsuits operate robotic skid loaders from a warm distance.
The freezers are everywhere, and it never occurred to me how convenient and decadent our supply of ice in summer has become, thanks to refrigeration.
Then I trained my eyes and mouth on the $3.00 slider and dove in.
Water came from my bike bottle, and some potato chips provided a fitting plat d'accompagnement: A $2.69 bag of Martin’s Kettle Gold knocked down to $1.59. I couldn’t pass them up even if I couldn’t down them all in one bench sitting.
My thoughts gave way to a chilling story my Dad was always eager to tell.
On Alba Mountain his own dad was charged with leading a team of horses and a large wagon from one place to another.
Kenny, my teen-aged grandfather, took a shortcut across a field that was covered in ten feet of snow and crusted over. He made it across without losing the entire train through the ice.
Thinking his dad would be relieved and proud, he disembarked from his horse to find instead that Pap Becker greeted him by “beating the living daylights out of him.”
Dad seemed to enjoy the shock value of that story, and we did too. Pap made our old man seem like a weighted anxiety blanket.
The moral takeaway, if there was one, was
Don’t be so damned proud of a short cut that endangers your family’s livelihood, your own life, and your horses too.
Clearly, Dad was misguided because we three boys never went near horses. Instead we raced around in heavy metal cars with our pals on wet country roads, defying mortality (!).
All this thinking of ice and freezers and whoopings in the winter, and there I was at Andy’s sweating my butt off eating a $5.00 lunch. Which is hard to do these days, unless you’re in a small town with a friendly corner deli whose internet domain is, curiously, www.meatsandsubs.com.
Replenished, it was time for me to head out to the adorable and air-conditioned public library. I went back into the store for one last thing.
The lady behind the counter filled my water bottle and apologized that she couldn’t give me any ice. The irony was so solid cold I didn’t ask why.
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