The Iceman and Penny Candy

Long before the appearance of the shiny, large, stainless steel refrigerator that is in most kitchens

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these days, the best and most modern method of storing food in cold storage was the ice-box.
The ice box was just that.... an insulated metal or wooden box with a metal lining.  Looking much like a small cabinet, there were usually two compartments.  One held a small shelf for storing milk and butter, etc.  And either above or below, another compartment, or drawer, for holding a large block of ice.  The ice block would last for days and keep the stored food from spoiling.
 
When I was a child my brother and sister and I would sit outside on the porch

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steps waiting for the ice-man.  Once a week Johnny, the ice-man's 16 year old son, would be seen driving the old ice truck.  The back of the truck was similar to today's delivery trucks but with a wooden floor and wooden side rails.  Straw was spread on the floor, and huge blocks of ice were tightly stacked.  The large, ice tongs were suspended on a nail on one of the side rails until they were needed for loading and unloading, or rearranging the cold blocks.

Johnny carried an ice pick which he would use to chip off chunks of ice to give to us.  There was something really special about watching him chip away those bits, which seemed to us to be so large as to take both hands to hold.  As soon as we had our icicle it would begin to melt in the summer heat, and the ice would become clear as glass as the frigid water dripped down our hands, and along our arms until it finally broke loose and dropped to the ground, and disappearing.

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In those days ice wasn't made in a building using large freezers.  It was collected from the frozen reservoir during the winter months when the water had frozen forming an ice layer at least two feet
thick.  Then the work crews, with horse drawn wagons and long toothed saws would go out onto the frozen surface and begin cutting the ice into large blocks.  Just as they did at the beginning of the movie "Frozen", only these men didn't sing while they worked.  Cutting ice was a dangerous job and without the warm clothing we now have, it was also a very cold job.

I remember my grandmother telling me about the time one of the ice wagons had backed down to near the water's edge and the horses could not pull it back to safety. The wagon rolled into the freezing water, pulling the team of horses with it.  The men could not save those poor horses.
By the mid-1950's the ice-truck stopped coming, and Johnny was busy with school and working in his father's general store.  Mr. Dulude's general store was small even by a child's standards, but it had the one thing every kid enjoyed:  penny candy.

Down the aisle, which happened to be in a direct line of sight from the checkout counter, was two

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long shelves, at child height, which held open boxes of a wide variety of candy.  Squirrels, caramel drops, pixie straws and licorice sticks, chocolate bars, and long paper strips filled with small, colorful dots of sugar candy... and more.  We would go to the cashier, usually it was Mrs. Dulude, to get our little brown paper bag for collecting our penny candy selections.  Some of the candy cost a penny per piece, but others were offered as multiple pieces for one penny.  The challenge was to fill that little bag with as much candy as we could afford with our nickel.  Once in a great while, we would save our pennies until we could afford to buy a chocolate bar for a whopping 10 cents.

We didn't get an allowance in those days, but when we would run an errand to the store to pick up grandmother's order which she had phoned in, we would receive a nickle to buy a treat.

Oh, the good old days.....  they really were good days!