We Need Something Cold

[W. Gray]

Great post, Wilma, and most interesting.

[Roma Jean Turner]

I remember the ice man and the little brown ice box at my grandparents.  They got their first refrigerator when I was probably 4 or 5.  It was quite an event, it was a Norge.  I also remember getting the butter in the plastic bag and getting to squeeze it so the yellow color be dispersed through out it.  Grandma told me that the little round area of coloring was the butter's belly button.  ha ha

[Ms Bear]

Wilma and Roma, those are wonderful memories.

Wilma, how many towns did he deliver the mail to? 

It is 4 pm here and the computer says it is 99 degrees but I think it is hotter than that.  Have a good breeze today that helps if you have to get out and work up a sweat.  Will have to water roses and azaleas tonight.  Thankyou for thinking about me here.

[W. Gray]

Roma Jean,

I think that was oleomargarine that was being purchased and colored yellow. However, I do recall we called it butter, also.

Margarine was white. Producers could not add yellow coloring to the margarine product to resemble butter because it was against the law. So they included separate vials of yellow coloring with the product. It was not against the law for the consumer to color the product.

Why was it against the law for manufacturers to color margarine?  Because if the margarine was left in its white state, it was hoped the consumer would likely not want it and would purchase butter instead. Laws protected the butter lobby and the dairy industry.

There were some states in which yellow margarine could be purchased but there was a premium, a tax, placed on the production of that product.

By the time, I began working in a grocery store in the mid 50's, the manufacturing coloring restriction had been lifted in Missouri.

Wisconsin was supposedly the last state to lift the coloring restriction in 1967.

[Diane Amberg]

That's it exactly. It was my job to knead the orange dot in the corner into the rest of the oleo bag once it was soft enough to work up. For years Wisconsin wouldn't allow oleo to be sold at all, then gradually under strict conditions.
If we bought commercial butter it was always Land O' Lakes. We usually got local farm butter. I do remember my great grandmother Clark's ice box in Horton.  By then she was a widow and lived in a nice second floor apartment that shared a bathroom.The ice man would carry the twenty five pound block up the steps and put it in for her. I think I remember her putting a colored card in her front window when she wanted ice.  Later grandpa Boyd bought her her first refrigerator. She was very proud of it. No more melting water and real ice cubes.

[Wilma]

Ms Bear, he delivered mail to three small towns in the morning and picked up their outgoing mail in the evening and brought it back to the depot to be picked up by the train.

Waldo, I still call it butter.  In my lifetime, I have bought very little butter.  My growing up years we churned and I continued to do so as long as I had access to cream.  Mother tried the white oleo and we tried coloring it, but it wasn't the same as butter.  I still like to have some butter in the house just in case I want to do a little cooking with it.

Ms. Bear, I have thought about you all day and wondered if maybe it were a little cooler down there.  It has been so nice here.  Light rain all morning and I think we had a high of around 85.

[Judy Harder]

I had been so relaxed today.  I had planned to be lazy to honor the National Lazy day.......but since my homemaker was due this morning at 8:30 I took shower curtain down and this requires me to hold my arms straight up and unclip the white plastic thingys and after I got them all undone, I dropped the curtain in a bathtub full of bleachy soapy water to get shower scum and soap stuff off it.........and then Bless her heart, she hung it back up.
It isnt a see-through lightweight one and I like it so keep doing this when I can get someone to hang it back up for me. Maybe 3 times a year.
Then I ironed for almost 2 hours till it was all done. Went to store first walking in the rain. Left pooches at home, was not ready to give bath's today.
I remember mom buying the oleo/butter with the yellow thingy in it and she would let me knead it and it was sort of fun for this 7 year old...........and until after dad got out of service, we did have an ice box and we did have an ice man...but my memory there is just of the ice pick working and me being allowed to eat the slivers. I still call my refrigerator an IceBox and will till the day I die.

[larryJ]

I, too, remember the ice box.  Although I think ours was green.  An icepick was probably the most important tool in the kitchen.  We were always picking the ice for cold drinks.  After my oldest brother was in the service for a while, he was able to buy a refrigerator for mom.  I was playing next door when he brought it home and my other brother yelled at me to come home.  No knowing what was going on, I chose to stay where I was at.  He came over and busted me one in the chops, chipping my front tooth.  I had that chipped tooth until I got married and my wife had dental insurance and insisted I fix it.  I used to be able to whistle really loud until that day.

You might remember also, the meat grinder anchored to the counter.  We used to buy meat in chunks and grind it ourselves for hamburgers.  I don't know if they sold ground meat in those days.  Also, a gas stove with no pilot lights.  Ours caught on fire once and burned most of the kitchen down.  Insurance paid for the repairs.  Also, a deep fat fryer was always ready for use containing pure old lard.  Had to change it out once every few days when it started getting stale.  But, those french fries were delicious.  It was my job to peel the potatoes and cut them into strips for the fries.

But, drinking something cold made me remember buying 8 oz. Cokes and a bag of peanuts and pouring the peanuts in the Coke.  Yummy!!!!


Larryj

[Wilma]

Ms Bear, how is your weather today?  Is it any cooler?  I haven't been able to tell from the maps they have shown us.  I feel guilty enjoying this cool and the rain that we have had, thinking that you might still be in the oven.

[sixdogsmom]

But! But! But! Wilma! Just remember that it will be down in the super freezy stuff before too terribly long, and Ms Bear will be bemoaning the fact that she cannot keep her super beautiful multi- famous tea and cake roses cut fast enough so that they won't smother her as she promenades to her top-down cadillac on February 33. [ I been readin' sarge and jarheads'postings]. We just had yet another squall through here, hooray!,I hope my rain guage runneth over!