Yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon, two men from Sears delivered our new refrigerator. Sylvia and I were working in the garage when the truck arrived. It didn’t take too long for the men to remove the old box and to setup the new one. We were very happy. A week earlier, the old unit had ceased working well. It cooled, but not very well.
Last evening, I found myself thinking about how much life has changed in my lifetime. I remember when my grandparents had an old ice box. You put a block of ice into a box and it cooled food enough to keep in from spoiling. It required no electricity, which was good, because there was no electricity in their neighborhood. It seems to me that we frequently take our modern conveniences for granted.
Old fashion icebox like the one that Grandma had.
As I thought about this last evening, I penned these lines into my notebook.
The Icebox
My grandma called it an icebox.
I call it refrigerator.
Grandma’s box held ice and her food,
It didn’t need a generator.
In winter it was kept outdoors.
She had to watch that things don’t freeze.
In my house a white metal box,
It chills my food, makes ice to please.
By the early 1950s, electrical service had reached my grandparents’ country home. Soon, they had a refrigerator and retired the old icebox. They also had electric lights. I liked those, because they didn’t make your eyes sting the way the fumes from the kerosene lamps did.
