Re: Iceman


"Roger Aultman" <raul@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:42EABED0.3010507@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

> In the mid 40's my folks rented a house in Toledo Iowa, I can only recall
> a refrigerator.
> Though a neighbor in the back had a icebox and was serviced by a horse
> drawn wagon that had heavy canvas covering the ice. The blocks were
> chopped to the customers needs. The iceman would let us take chips off
> the wagon, they were considered a treat at that time. A very different
> era. Roger Aultman
>

My dad was recalling these old days over lunch at my house a few months
back. A couple of details I found interesting...

Ice customers had a card with different numbers on it, sort of like a
4-cycle waybill. You'd put the card in a pocket stuck inside your front
window with the appropriate number visible to indicate how many pounds of
ice you needed that day. So the iceman knew how much ice you needed before
he left his wagon and only had to make one trip into your house that way.
These numbered cards in the front window might make an interesting detail.

Dad also remembered the milk man in a horse drawn wagon. The milk man would
stop at one end of the block, fill up his hand carrier with his wares and
walk up one side of the block making deliveries. When he got to the end of
the block, he'd whistle and the horse would bring the wagon to him so he
wouldn't have to walk back to it.

I often wished I could do that on my paper route as a kid. I really had to
hustle to get papers delivered to ~300 customers in the 2.5 hours between
getting out of school and the 6pm delivery deadline. Fortunately didn't have
to deal with monster Sunday papers as there was no Sunday paper in those
days, but the Wednesday papers were always pretty big as that was the heavy
advertising day.

Cheerio...

Mike


.

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