My wife and I were strolling through Sears a couple of days ago and overheard a young couple trying to decide on the type of refrigerator they should buy.
He was very much in favor of paying quite a few extra dollars for one that had an automatic ice maker built in. She was all for saving the extra dollars for more important things.
I don't know what the final decision was but it gave me reason to recall the days of the ice box and how wonderful we thought they were.
Mom and Dad had one in their back shed and if I remember correctly it used to take a fifty pound block in the ice storage area and left a little room for meat, etc. that needed extra cool air to help preserve food that might easily spoil.
Oh how I loved it when our iceman would make a delivery and would take his ice pick and chip off little chunks of ice to "square up" the block. We kids used to ask the "iceman" for the chips that we would slip into our mouth on a hot day to help cool us off.
There was always one big problem we had with the ice box; and that was remembering to remove the pan that was placed underneath to catch the water as the ice melted.
Oh what a mess when someone would discover that the pan had been forgotten and the melted water had overflowed out of the catch pan, had run all over the floor and had to be mopped up.
Finally Dad conjectured an idea that solved the problem.
Fortunately, directly below the location of our ice box was our earthen basement floor. It was here that he drilled a hole in our shed floor about one inch in circumference and it was through this hole that the water escaped onto the basement floor. As a result the problem of having to worry about an overflowing dish was solved much to the relief of all in our family.
There really was something special about the old ice boxes. Unlike to-day's young folk who are newly married and insist on the latest of everything; we were thrilled and proud of our old ice-box that was obtained when my aunt bought a refrigerator and gave us the icebox she was discarding.
