Who is old enough to remember ICE delivery to your home?

[Speck Tater]

I remember when the ice man came with blocks of ice for the ice box. In the summer he used to chip off a piece for us kids. The ice always tased of sawdust and canvas because that's how it was kept insulated on the ice truck. That ice ws so crystal clear you could see all the way through a 25-pound block of it.

[Medium Baby Jesus]

1. Sadly yes.

The ice guy would give us kids hunks of ice to suck on. We also had a guy who came and sharpened kitchen knives. They both traveled up and down the alleys behind the row houses (Philadelphia)

[Ernesto]

2. My word, you must be an old f**k!

However I do remember that guy with the big ice tongs & the leather apron..............

[Cannikin]

3. You can remember that AND work a computer????

:hippie:

[Speck Tater]

11. HEHE. Yup. My first programming job was in 1963.

But then computer stuff seems to run in the Shannon family. My sister, son and daughter, and several cousins are all computer programmers too. My dad used to build them back in the 1950's. And then there's "Uncle Claude..." and his unicycle. (Google Claude Shannon if you don't know the name.)

[trof]

4. Yep. Not my house, but great-aunt Suzy's.

She refused to give in to modern technology. I remember the icebox on her back porch. And the sign she'd put in the window on "ice" days.
It said "5 lbs." on one side, and "10 lbs." on the other.

[xchrom]

5. why do you want to know -- bub?!?!

[oneighty]

6. Indeed

Near Henderson Harbor in New York state in summertime we go to the ice house dig it out of the sawdust our own selves. It was so cool.

In the winter with horses they go out onto Sandy Creek and cut the ice into blocks and store it in the ice house.

I guess the water musta been a lot cleaner then I bet, or we be dead long ago.

"Those were the days my friends"

180

[finecraft]

12. We did the same thing at our summer house in northern Minnesota

The neighbors lived up there year round, so during the winter they would go out to the lake and cut blocks of ice out. They then brought them over to our ice house and put them in the sawdust. When we came up in the summer, the first job the kids had was to go out to the ice house and bring a block in for the icebox (literally) in the kitchen.

We didn't get a refrigerator for there until well into the 1970's...or indoor plumbing until then either.

[oneighty]

14. Boy that is fairly recent

Those Lakes must have still been in pretty good shape.

I was talking before WW 2 to around 46. There was no electricity on Stony Point at the time.

180

[finecraft]

15. They were still pretty good until the late 80's

Lots of freshwater clams and crystal clear. We were about 25 miles from the Canadian border, and the original "road" to the property was just an old trail that led back to the lake from the highway (about 5 miles). One of our neighbors was a scientist that spent 6 months out of the year in Antarctica, and he had a seaplane that he would fly in and out for groceries and such. We didn't get electricity to the house up there until 1977. Went back up there around '96, and no clams anymore. By then there was a paved road, and many people had built homes around the lake, quite a few of them living there year-round. The nearest town with a grocery store was 30 miles away, so there wasn't a lot of activity up there in the 60's and 70's when I stayed there. Most of the people that lived there were logging, hunting, fishing and trapping for a living. I didn't realize it then, but now I consider the time I spent there some of the best times of my life.

[Kellanved]

7. well...

It looks more like this and doesn't melt in the sun:


And it is not exactly at home either, but pretty much on my University's main Campus - close enough. :P

[RetroLounge]

8. No ICE deliveries

but when I was a kid, the diaper truck was a regular visitor to our neighborhood, along with the knife sharpener with his push cart, and the milk delivery truck.

RL

[Dave Reynolds]

9. I do remember the truck with the baby riding on top,

and our milkman went by the name of Mr. Ed.

My dad still says I look a lot like Mr. Ed. Hmmm....

[China_cat]

10. We had ice delivered.

And milk. My grandmother had an oval gas ring in the cellar that the laundry tub went on. It got boiled and then scrubbed by hand on a wash board.

Of course, we had these things long after the neighbors had washing machines, refrigerators and bought their milk at the store because my grandmother just couldn't abide change at all.

[RebelOne]

13. When I was very young, I would spend summers with my

grandmother in Philadelphia. And she would have a block of ice delivered for her refrigerator.

[FreedomFry]

16. I remember the sawdust man ...

In Seattle -- Land of Logging -- our house was heated with sawdust. There was a huge, funnel-shaped iron bin in the basement that held the sawdust, which would slowly empty into an incinerator-like apparatus, which was our heater. A conduit ran above the bin and along the top of the basement, emptying out the side of the house. Once a week a truckload of sawdust would sidle up to the house and connect to the conduit. The sawdust was pumped in, the bin would fill up, and we'd have another week's worth of heat.

On reflection, considering the explosive nature of sawdust, it's a wonder I lived to finish the fourth grade.

[VOX]

17. Not ice, but milk. And bread. And ice cream.

Wayne the Milkman was the coolest guy. He even shinnied up a big tree to rescue our cat. On hot summer days, Wayne gave the kids blocks of ice from the truck to play with. We lived on a hill, so we'd go sliding down it on the ice-blocks.

We were bad with the bread truck -- as it went down the hill, we'd jump in the back bumper for a ride. No one was ever injured, thankfully.

The Good Humor Man was a riot -- he'd probably had it with screaming kids all summer long. As we brats would gather around his truck, he'd roll out of his seat and greet us with, "What'll it be today, kids, rhubarb on square wheels?" Man, when he opened that *thick* little door to his freezer compartment, it was magic -- all that frost hitting the warm air, and the quick glimpse of the stacked sugary treasures within. He also wore that fascinating little metal gizmo on his belt that held (and dispensed) coins.

I want to go back. Now. :(