Notes from Barb: The Ice-Box

The first place we lived on Park Point was a summer cottage . . . not meant for winter. We moved in March and it was COLD but we were healthy and just dressed warmer. The cottage was mostly open underneath, built on posts, the center one being quite a bit taller because all the floors slanted away from the center. In the kitchen a person rolled toward the window and climbed up to the sink. When dining we had a choice: Do you want to eat clutching the table to keep from falling over backward, or would you rather fall into your soup?

The interior walls were made of some type of pressed fibre not much thicker than carboard as they bent and buckled between battens. And the woodwork was a rough sawed lumber. Not exactly the Ritz! And all painted in shades of chocolate from bittersweet to cocoa which may sound tasteful but was, in fact, quite depressing. So the first thing I did was get permission to paint the kitchen . . . bright and sunny colors with flowers and scrolls around the window and over the sink. The cupboards consisted of a kitchen cabinet and open shelves on the wall. And there was a ice-box. One puts ice in the top; it melts and drips into a pan that slides undereath. Never having had any experiences with an ice-box before, I was always forgetting to empty that pan so it would over-flow and run into the low corner. Next thing, I would find the baby having a delightful swim in that pool.

Since we had moved to the Point to be near our boat, we used it every chance we got, usually going out on Friday after work and coming back Sunday night. The Lake Trout were plentiful so we often went to Knife River, fished around the Island, and tied up under the railroad bridge for the night. (The river is too shallow now but there was often another fish-boat in there, too.) Now our land-lady watched over our cottage like a mother with a sick child. She was usually on the other side of any window if we happened to peer out. So she would see the ice-box water in the kichen corner, use her key, and empty it . . . of course with a leture to me on proper care of an ice-box. I guess I am a slow learner because I so often forgot.

One evening we heard the splashing of the water and there was our daughter in the pool again. "Damit. I always seem to forget." Bill said he would fix it once and for all . . .so he got out his trusty .44 and shot a neat, round hole in the corner! The water gurgled out into the sand and that was that! We never had that problem again.

AND . . . the land-lady never saw a puddle in the corner again so complimented me on finally managing to learn to take care of a simple thing like an ice-box!