Читать книгу Raising Able - Susan Tordella - Страница 26

The ice project emanated from my father’s values: saving money by doing-it-yourself, using the equipment you owned (no matter how old) and planning ahead.

Born in 1919, Dad came-of-age in the Great Depression. Combined with the thriftiness necessary with having nine children, making ice fit in with one of Dad’s fundamental life purposes: to save money.

It never occurred to me to say, “How much are you going to pay me for this?” Or, “Why aren’t you asking Mary or Brian to make ice?” As the eighth of nine children, making ice offered me a way to contribute to the family that no one else could claim.

“Use these bags.” Dad showed me a box of new plastic bags.

“Cool,” I thought. The family rule was to use old bread bags with stale crumbs in the bottom. My job was special because I was allowed to use new plastic bags. It doesn’t take much to please children.

I took my duty seriously and harvested about four pounds of ice first thing in the morning and again after dinner. Dad was right. The mechanical icemaker was inadequate. When we opened the freezer too often during hot weather, the temperature rose and it wouldn’t lay ice.

Other malfunctions stopped production: cubes clogged the mechanism, the waterline crimped, and the ice tasted funny. On a good night when no one opened the freezer, it laid a small pile in the bottom of the bin, which got us to noon and lacked the sweet taste of my ice.

I felt proud when my ice was served with dinner and at Dad’s weekly backyard volleyball game with other DuPont lab rats. When the ice bin was empty, I’d bound down to the basement freezer for a bag of “free” ice. While my contribution was rarely acknowledged by my father or others, I saw everyone using my ice during a hot and muggy Delaware summer day. I particularly liked to make ice when Dad was in the basement tinkering.