And the first "reefers" carried that beer across the Nation.
Posted on 06/05/2022 6:18:00 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
He met Burke once at ASU as he was completing his PhD in physics.
Apalachicola, Florida: Museum To The Man Who Invented Air Conditioning
Yup - but what it isn’t is life safe in many applications. IIRC, the FDA bans the use of most ammonia refrigeration in food and pharmaceutical plants.
We always called it an ‘ice box’. (I was raised by folks who grew up with only those.)
“(btw, I once looked at a house which had a left-behind fridge that still used sulfur dioxide, which antedated Freon.)”
Now they use Propane, which is going to explode, and WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!
(actually Propane is an excellent refrigerant and mix it with Butane in the proper proportion and you have a perfect drop-in replacement for R-12)
I grew up calling it the icebox as that is what mom called it.
We had an old fashioned refrigerator, short with rounded edges. Ipana written on it. Mom kept the radio on top and for some reason as a pretty young kid I used to climb on top and look out the window and listen to that radio. Old am station. I remember a news story about a person who was being kept locked in a room and watched by the priests because they were supposedly possessed by the devil. Words across their chest would form, backwards. I’ve always thought this was the story that was famously used for the book, The Exorcist...
My grandparents used to call their Fridgedaire “the icebox”
Born in Canada, in my early years I remember the iceman delivering blocks of ice for our refrigerator ... in the warmer summer months. The ice block was placed on a shelf on the top of the refrigerator with a tray below it to catch the melting ice. The ice was typically cut from nearby lake or river in the winter months and placed in ice sheds ... kept from melting by being covered with sawdust usually from a local sawmill. In the warmer months the ice blocks were retrieved from the ice sheds, the sawdust sprayed off and the ice delivered to customers.
Frigidaire was founded as the Guardian Frigerator Company in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and developed the first self-contained refrigerator, invented by Nathaniel B. Wales and Alfred Mellowes in 1916. In 1918
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frigidaire
One of the first companies was called ‘Frigerator’ not Re- Frigerator. I think you’re on to something....
I dare you to say that to a kilt wearing Scot
When I was just a little fella (maybe 4-5 years old), I’d sometimes go with my dad and the other men that were members of the ice co-op to harvest ice.
They’d build a huge bonfire on the bank of the lake where they heated up these long, pointed I-bolts. They’d lay out 4’ squares on the ice surface and then plunge those red-hot I-bolts down a center hole they chiseled, and let em freeze in overnight. The next day, they took what appeared to be a long-bar chainsaw and would cut those 4’ blocks out of lake ice that was 4-5’ thick. They’d snatch onto the I-bolt with a chain hooked up to a team of work horses that would then pull that block completely out of the lake. They skidded those blocks with that horse team up into an old barn they called the “Ice House”. Once full, they buried those big blocks with sawdust from the sawmill down the road.
The Ice Man would carve out 1’ blocks from the Ice House and bring em to town every Thursday. My mother would send me and my little radio-flyer wagon down the hill with a nickel to buy a block for the ice box. She’d always tell me, and I can still hear her now: “Don’t you dilly-dally, young man. You get right back up here with that block as fast as you can.” I’d go down there, pay the guy, and he’d put the block on the wagon. I’d quickly cover it with some old burlap and blankets, and then head back up the hill where my mom would load it into the Ice Box.
I believe it was 1956 when my dad purchased a GE refrigerator. He was told not to open the door for 24 hours after he plugged it in...no one knew why...LOL. We were all standing there as he plugged it in. That old-style compressor came on and was so loud, we thought it was gonna explode so we all ran out of the house!!! We waited a good while, it didn’t explode so we went back in.
Man, time flies...seems like yesterday.
Of course my gandfther, born in the 1800s, always called an automobile a "machine". He'd say "Get into the machine, and we will go for ice cream.".
Read urban jungle. Hopefully you weren’t in the ne.
The only book I found called “Urban Jungle” is about gardening!?
In making sure I got the term “sheeny man” spelled right I did a search. One of the first things that came up was that he was used as a threat to the kids - sort of like the “boogy man”.
And the first "reefers" carried that beer across the Nation.
My dad told me similar stories. Hence the term ‘’icebox’’.
You’d get a big chunk of ice and put it in a large, usually oak box with a metal lined inside and that was how you kept things cooled.
I doubt anyone in America under the age of fifty has ever heard the word ‘’icebox’’.
The term lives on in "icebox cookies" (refrigerator cookies) or "icebox watermelon" (compact melon you can chill in the 'fridge).
The iceman was something my Mom and Dad would have remembered.
Glad I bought the old fashioned ice cream maker (needs rock salt and plenty of ice) with the hand crank!
My kids and grand kids have heard that term and explanation from me. I have always referred to what is now called a convenience store as an ice house. They all wanted to know why I did that. Hence the explanation of an ice box. I still have the ice tongs my dad used to carry the block of ice he would purchase from the ice house.
I do have early pics of my brothers and me standing in front of the ice box from the early sixties.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.