The Seaforth News, 1961-10-19, Page 7peddllog Ice
11 The Summertime
Several famous old half -backs
in days of yore used to keep in
athletic condition by peddling
ice in the summertime, Just be-
fore college opened, the news
papers Would run a photograph
of the potential, All-American,
a rubber apron over his broad
shoulders, and a 200 -pound cake
of ice poised on the tailgate of
a wagon, He was about to
clutch this ice in the tongs of
the trade, snatch it to the nape
of his neck, and trot lightly up
five flights of stairs to insert it
in an ieebbx-a-all of which tune
ed him up for the football season
and proved that he was power,
ful and enduring,
Back when I weighed 138
pounds and was already six feet
tall, being far too light and un -
muscular to be taken seriously
'by any football coach, I was the
only one in my crowd who ever
peddled ice in the summertime.
So you can draw your own con-
elusions.
I had an uncle who owned an
ice, business, and he threw odd
jobs at see now and then as jobs
went. There was a stable of
horses, which meant something
to do around there most of the
time, Cleaning out, shining up,
washing and painting wagons,
and even leading a horse now
and then to the farrier, One day
be told me to go on one of the
wagons and help Elwood, and I
thus began peddling ice in a
football -less career,
There was, then, no such thing
as • mechanical refrigeration, at
least for home use. Most of the
farmers, if they had dairies, put
up their own ire, packed in saw-
dust, and used zinc -lined tanks
for the cans The housewife
usually kept her butter there.
In the village, homes had ice-
boxes, and the commonest va-
riety had a lift -up top -meaning
that the chunk of ice had to be
lifted to a maximum by the ice-
man, There was alt occasional
icebox with a front entrance,
and while the lift wasn't so hard,
they required more dexterity in
.inserting the ice. They were
tricky. You had to retrieve your
tongs at a Certain point -of -no -
return, and if you miscued you
could be in real trouble, 'with an
excited housewife dressing you
down for scratching her enamel,
spilling her cream jug, and get-
ting chips of ice over her clean
floor.
The only full-size cakes (they
run from 200 to 300 pounds)
we handled were for the mar-
kets in the village, and this was
done with slides and pulleys in
such a way that we never lifted
on them. The photograph of the
football captain about to trot up
to a penthouse with a full cake
on his shouluders was presump-
tive.
The little lady who lived with
three cats in a garret was never
a full -cake customer, but re-
quired a ten -cent piece, which
she wrapped in newspaper and
made last most of a week. A
ten -cent piece of ice should have
weighed 20 pounds, but our po-
licy was to cut it so it came out
about 25, and in a whole day's
work, we seldom used the scales
that hung on a bracket on the
rear bf the wagon. We were
generous, and thus saved weigh-
ing. If a customer insisted on
seeing the weight, then we care-
fully chipped a piece down to
just the right size, and gave no
more than was paid for. You did
better to trust us,
to icebox was a messy thing,
not only because ice dripped and
kept everything damp, but be-
cause housewives generally kept
them so. It was the nature of the
thing, There would be a drab
and bedraggled bunch of celery,
' two tomatoes and a cucumber
reposing on the sad remnants of
last Tuesday's ice, and there is
no genius of the kitchen equal
to making that arrangement look
lovely, Arrriving with a new
25 cent piece of ice, I had the
duty of removing said treasures
from their little grooves in the
remnant, putting inthe new ice,
chipping the remaining so it
would fit in around the edges,
and then thinking of something
to •do with the celery, tomatoes .
and cucumber,
One home was fond of eels,
The gentleman in the family
used to go up to the millpond,
and bob eels in the evening for
amusement, bringing them home
and laying them on the ice in
Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking
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1SSTJE 41 - 1961
his, ice -chest, When I came it
was my happy task to remove,
the eels, insert the. ice,, and then
replace the eels, which tended
to reduce my opinion of eels as
both a game and food fish, and
I have never renewed my en-
thusiasms in that area.
Being an iceman had, some re-
ward. Women who were bak-
ing cookies, frying doughnuts
and performing noble acts at the
stove usually contributed. But
there were others who were
fussy, and took the fun out of
it, "Are your feet wiped?" was
a greeting we could have done
without.
Some fastidious ladies had
papers laid down, and personal-
ly led us over them so we
wouldn't 'drip on the floor, Some
would make us stand, a moment
while they scanned the ice -not
so much to see if it was lawful
size, but to see If it was clean.
One lady used to set a pan of
water on her, piazza and insisted
we splash it over the cake to
cleanse it. After the sun had
been on the pan all morning,
this washing process would melt
away a good part of the ice, and
then she would complain that
the piece didn't seem to be as
big as it should,- We got so we
weighed her piece at the cart,
and had witnesses if we could
find any.
I liked peddling ice. In the
cool of the morning we'd drive
the horses to the icehouse, dig
the great cakes out of the saw-
dust and load the cart, and then
course the village filling ice-
boxes, And along in late sum-
mer 1'd pick up a newspaper
and see pictures of football stars
posing with cakes of ice to prove
that this labor made them
strong and agile, I guess if that
had been true, you'd Have heard
of me instead of Red Grange, -
By John Gould in the Christian
Science Monitor.
They Go To Look
At One Another
It is a perfectly ordinary -
looking saloon, in a less than
fashionable section of Los An-
geles, but in eight months, P.J.'s
has established itself as itsville.
In the cypress -paneled back
room, Shelley Winters polishes
off a bowl.of the house specialty
-chili (75 cents) -and Mort
Sahl orders a hamburger $(1.10)
and coffee (50 cents). The
crowd, packed in like the mobs
in the old DsMille movies, is an
assortment of blondes in capri
pants, pompadour -ed young ac-
tors who haven't made it yet, a
few agents, a scattering of mu-
sicians, Jane Fonda, Jayne Mans-
field, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Ella Fitz-
gerald, onlookers, on -liquors,
and four happy owners whom
publicity, luck, and the lem-
ming instinct have catapulted to
prosperity.
Paul Valentine, a . onetime
Chicago detective who, with
partners Bill Doherty, Charles
Murano, and Paul Raffles -
Chicagoans all - opened P,J,'s
last February, is blunt about his
big draw: "They all come in to
look at one another."
The trick, of course, was get-
ting a shirt. Probably the big
break came when Eddie Fisher
and Liz Taylor brought the
Moiseyev dance troupe to feast
on spareribs, chili, ham and eggs,
and other such homespun goodi-
es at P.J,'s, (The initials stand
for nothing at all.) Eddie and
Liz are still fans, regularly
sending messengers from the
Beverly Hills Hotel for two or-
ders of chili. And there are lots t'
of applicants for the two seats
they don't take up. Ordinary
• turnaway on a Saturday night
is 300 people, and the doorman
reports: "I was offered $40 in
an hour, one night, but we have
a strict rule: No payoffs to get
in,,,
No place is perfect, of course;
Tina Louise, who had a reserva-
tion, once • was refused admis-
sion, because nobody believed
she was really Tina Louise (she
still calls it "The swingingest
club in town"), And there is,
too, a point of diminishing re-
turn, which in the long view,
may dim the charm of celebrity -
looking. Once Gardner McKay
explained who he was to a cou-
ple of girls at the bar, "Never
heard of ye," - yawned one. "I
don't watch TV these nights.
Just sit around here , , .
BOW TO SAVE YOUR
REALLY VALUABLE JEWELS
In Paris, andia's glittering Ma-
haranee of Baroda dropped a
pearl of advice, Owner of one
of the world's costliest private
jewel collections, the Maharanee
said casually to syndicated col-
umnist Art Buchwald: "My in-
surance'people told me to always
leave a little something on the
night table, like $100,000 worth,
so the thieves won't get mad and
hit you over the head."
From the Longview (Wash.)
News: If communism is ' as great
as the Russian claim it is, you'd
think they would take down
that Iron Curtain and put in a
picture window.
JUST HITCHED - Newlyweds Mr. and Mrs. George 8. Olson,
of Aurora, Colo„ head for a horseback honeymoon.
. Someone told 'tie, as we travel-
ed north through Michigan, that
we shouldn't miss meeting the
two Texas boys with the free
-enterprise spirit who had come
to the Upper Peninsula and
started making fences from
Michigan cedar for the folks
back home,
The two Texans had not only
built a good business for them-
selves, they also had provided
work for some rural Michigend-
ers who needed jobs.
Y,, 4 x,
When we located the Northern
Cedarcraft plant at Gladstone,
we found two Texans, all right
-handsome, genial, and gracious
as Texans are expected to be.
But the Texans who greeted us
in the little cedar cottage which
serves as an office were not two
boys -they were man and wife,
Mr. and Mrs. G. H. Casey. The
other "boy," they told us, is
Northern Cedarcraft president,
Paul Richardson, who presides
over the home office at Dallas.
Their company had been buy-
ing cedar up here to make its
fences but was not getting all it
needed. Mr. Casey came here in
1958 to buy another fence com-
pany, but when this deal fell
through, he leased a building
and Cedarcraft launched its own
plant. Recently the company
added prefabricated log cabins to
its line; but the fences are still
its major product.
* ' i,
At its busy season, the plant
employs up to 60 people, only
two of whom had had any wood-
working experience. They all
have had to be taught the rudi-
ments of fence making.
At this point in Mr. Casey's
story, the Delta County exten-
sion director, Joseph L. Heir -
man, who had helped us find
Mr Casey, couldn't resist ex-
pressing his appreciation for
what he feels this company has
done for the community.
* * ,,
"Another woodworking mill
had closed up" he explained,
"and left its -people unemployed.
Cedarcraft provided jobs for
some of them. Everyone in the
plant here has been unemploy-
ed,"
"1 have the most wonderful
people here I have ever hired in
my life," Mr. Casey put in with
appreciation warming his voice,
too. "One of the boys, when he
started, wasn't drawing 'any
more pay here than he had been
getting' in unemployment pay-
ments." The workers are paid
straight salary, he said, and
when profits permit, they get a
raise,
* * *
The sound of hammering was
loud as we approached the plant,
and the rhythm of work did
not change as the boss escorted
his visitors through the busy
shop, A. genuine rapport could
be sensed here, between man-
agement and labor. They are
friends, * * *
The market for cedar fences is
largely in the Southwest the
Caseys explained. "This means
that most of the money we pay
our workers, and spend here,
comes from another area," Mrs:
Casey pointed out, "People up
here aren't fence conscious, but
dowel in the Southwest they live
outdoors and they want privacy
for their patios,"
But it is a seasonal market,
Mr. Ca:.y told us, because when
summer beet closes in, Texans
withdraw from their yards (pre-
sumably to air-conditioned in-
teriors). They buy their fences
earlier in the year, The factory
works the year 'round, but only
during the VA. -month busy sea-
son does it carry its full staff of
from 46 to 60 employees, The
rest of the year only about 18
mon are needed to keep things
going, writes Helen Henley in
the Christian Science Monitor,
.• *
"But for every man in the
plant, it takes five or six men
out in the woods to cut the logs
we need," Mr. Casey said. "The
cutting starts in November and
ends in March or the first of
April. We buy the cedar posts
by the piece, The farmers bring
them in, and collect their checks
right then. This is the first year
we have been able to get all the
fence posts we wanted. We have
bought nearly 750,000 posts this
year. We can cut up, on the
average, about 4,000 posts a
day,"
He accounts for the good mar-
ket for his product in this way:
"Cedar fences give privacy, they
require no maintenance nor up-
keep, they are really durable,
they weather to an attractive
gray "
4 4 *
The company has had a sales
representative working in the
East for two years, and considers
its potential market territory to
be from the East to Denver, and
from the North down into
Texas. "If we try to go West,
we would run into redwood and
western red cedar, • and could
hardly be competitive," lie ex,
plained,
Although the number of
workers employed at Cedar -
craft's Gladstone plant is com-
paratively small, this is just ,.he
kind of industry which ,elr.
Heiman declared the area needs.
"The Upper Peninsula has been
looking for small industries for
some time," he said and a num-
ber have moved in. "People here
welcome industries which hire
perhaps only 15 or 20 workers."
Often, as was the case at Cedar -
craft, the people must be trained
for their jobs. One reason they .
are unemployed is that they are
not skilled, *
"We have a large number of
people in the UP who are on
the rural edge -they are classi-
fied as farmers but they have to
work at least 100 days a years
off the farm to make ends
meet," said Mr. iieirman. "I
would say that one-third of
' those up here classified as farm-
ers have to work off the farm
to supplement their income, In
this area, a lot of them work in
some aspect of making timber
products, Some farmers go to
work in November cutting posts
in woodlots. They, get their
chores done in the morning and
evening, and cut all day, Some
eut pulpwood for the paper
mills -mostly balsam and spruce,
Some farmers do very well at
this," „, *
The picture may differ else-
where, to the extent that local
resources and local eircume
stances differ. But what Mr.
Heirman termed "underemploy.
ment" of rural people is a come
mon problem today all over the
country.
That is why many rural areas
with "underemployed" people
are assiduously wooing small in-
dustries like Northern Cedar.'
craft, But as in this case, the in-
dustry must fit naturally into
the community, and be able to
operate at a profit, while 'help-
ing the local citizens to earn
their living,
Plenty Of Cavities
And More Coming !
The (I,S, nation's teeth are in
a bad way, and getting worse.
Americans have a horrendous
total of some 700 million cavi-
ties, which works out to four
and a half cavities per person
-among the people who have
teeth, And 22 million other
Americans are completely tooth-
less.
These statistics were released
this month by the drug indus-
try's Health Information Foun-
dation, which is worried about
the trend in teeth. The founda-
tion finds that Americans give
only lip service to the slogan:
"See your dentist twice a year".
Although 88 per cent of the peo-
ple interviewed said it was a
good idea, only about 40 per cent
follow through.
To correct these conditions,
George Bugbee, president of the
foundation, recommends more
fluoridation of city water suppl-
ies, and a national drive to put
teeth into his campaign for
teeth.
The man who sold his 100 -acre
farm for $10,000 some years ago
Inas a grandson who came back
to the farm -now "Rifle Ridge
Acres" -and paid $30,000 for a
house on 10,000 square feet of
what was once grandpa's prop-
erty.
SC11OO1
LESSON
By Rev. R. Barclay Warren,
B.A., KU
Growth in Knowledge of God
Matthew 5:17-20, 38-48
Memory Selection: Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with ail
thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind. Matthew
22;37,
All engin know something of
the eternal power of God
through the universe which He
has made, Romans 1:19,20. God
spoke more directly to Abraham,
Jacob, Moses and others, Some-
times He revealed himself
through dreams, He also spoke
to men by prophets. But the
greatest knowledge of God has
come to us through His Son who
came in the likeness of human
flesh. After His ascension into
heaven, the Holy Spirit came in
His fulness to guide us into truth
and to reveal to us Jesus' Christ.
We also have the Holy Scrip-
tures which were given by in-
spiration of God,
We are the most privileged
people of all time in regard to
having a knowledge of God, The
Scriptures are readily available
and in translations abundant.
With so many new modern
translations coming out, it may
just happen 'that the rising gen-
eration will not commit to mem-
ory, verses from any one of
them. That would be too bad.
We should know one translation
well. Reading others may help
to clarify the thought and, of
course, that is more important
than being able to repeat cer-
tain words. But in failing to
commit to memory many por-
tions of Scripture, children and
youth will be deprived of a great
richness in their lives.
The Holy Spirit is given to all
that obey Him. It is He who
makes the Scriptures real to us.
He convicts of sin, righteousness
and judgment. He illuminates
the Word so that we grasp the
meaning of Christ's death for us,
He leads us to repentance and
then inspires faith in Christ to
the washing away of our sins.
He witnesses with our spirit
that we are the children of God.
There need be no limit in our
advancement of knowledge of
God. If we really love him as
suggested by our memory selec-
tion, then we shall want to know
Him better each day. Our
knowledge of Him will grow in
the life to come, also.
Instead of loving your enemi-
es, treat your friends a little
better.
CROSSWORD
PUZZLE
ACROSS DOWN
1 Nettled • 1, Necktie
5, Capital of
3. Oat bat
4, Dismiss
6, Abstract
being
7. Intimidates
18. Gorge
14 Word of
honor
15. Reluctant.
16 51ade speeches
(humorous)
17 Weathercock
15. Larboard
20 Topaz
humming bird
52 Anecdotes
52 Strike with
missiles
23 Proofreader's.
mark
24 Tantalum
symbol
26. Edible fish
26 Sparkled
27. Tears
28. impel/ by us,
29 Exempts
31. Foamy yeas,
82. Sp. article
84 Track etrcuite
36. Moderate
30 Style of
haircut
87. Pulpy fruit
88. Entice
55. Student's
eons,
40 One ivho
makes men's
suite
42 Recount
44, Exit
46. Summons
46, Group of els
47 Discourages
5. iutenstt'tes St. Mends
7.b`un 28. Sprinkled
0. Conveyance 20. Wind
9. Conetellatlon instrumento
Se. Propeller- 89. Devastate
shaped part 31, Legal
of a ship's log profession
11. Football team 12 Dillydally
12. Grave and 86. Explode
thoughtPu7 36. Clump of
19. Palm leaf brushwood
25.
Young seals
23. Fraud 58. Mislay
26. Draw gimes 89. Coagulate
26. withered 41. Hindrance
(var.) 43. Twilight
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5
6
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16
17
19
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20
21
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25
22
23
26
27
78
29
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31
32
33
34
36
37
38
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40
41
42
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44
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46
9-2
47
Answer elsewhere on this page
WEATHER DAMAGE - This was all that remained of the east end of the Thane Earle .hom%
near Whitewater, Wis., as a tornado, high winds and violent thunderstorms hit the Michigan-
, Wisconsin wed.