Nisstyre's Corner

Enter the forbidden dungeon of...oddness.

Before everyone had electric refrigerators, ice was delivered by icemen who travelled regular routes with trucks and earlier with horse-drawn wagons.

If we were back in the early 20th century, it would be that time of year again; time to start ice harvesting so that the housewife, restaurants, bars, railroads, and other large users of ice will have their regular supply of ice. The iceman would start his regular deliveries around Memorial Day, and continued until Labor Day. (IT'S ICE HARVESTING TIME By LARRY GORMALLY)

(----) Space Cataz!

And thus the circle of life comes back to me. The Iceman of the 21st Century. This is just a couple things I found poking around on the internet, something I rarely do anymore. I've seen the net, it holds no new pleasures for me, that is until I get some broadband. Too bad they still don't offer it in this part of NY, and not just this part, just my road, the rest of the town has dsl and cable. My road gets shit-canned, no cable, and ancient phone lines. I guess there was still "party lines" setup here in the 70s, you know, where three houses would be on a single phone number, and if someone was using it, no one else could. Fuck man.

But I found a couple passages, and had to reflect on them, because I do find my job kind of odd, in todays world I am a Vendor, such as you see the Bread Trucks, Pepsi Trucks, Beer Trucks. We are vendors, and we make all those good things in stores appear. You probably don't take too much notice, but in a general idea, we are a swarm travelling around. Its not uncommon to see the same "other" vendors at different locations. Or my favorite, the poor clerk at that one store 20 trucks converge on. I call those Vendor Conventions. I've sat outside super markets, in line for the loading dock, with a Pepsi truck and the Beer Truck in front of me. At the dock was Mr.Coke A Cola. Behind me was the Hostess Truck, The Bread Truck, The Chip Truck....You get the idea. Beware the back of super markets on Tuesday Mornings, that seems to be the gathering time.

But out of all of these guys, I am the ancient Vendor. Before any of them, there was the icemen. Before there was electric fridges, there was iceboxes, which was like a fridge, but you shoved a block of ice in the bottom. Its a good trick when camping if you have a fridge but no power, put a block of ice in the veggie drawers. But basically they'd come to your door and give you what you needed. Of course, in those days, they were chopping the ice from the rivers, covering them in sawdust so they didn't melt as fast, and placed them in store houses. Yummy industrial water too, you wounder why people died all the time, heh.

What is even stranger is I basically work for a company that was hauling ice like that, from the river, delivery with horses. The company is only 50 years old, but to my knowledge basically the old icehouse business was bought up in the 50s by my retired boss, who's son now runs the place, and from there the ancient wooden structures were torn down, and a cinder block structure built, which is my place of business.

Oddly, much of what was quoted holds true. Our time of business for the year is from Memorial Day to Labor Day, one reason I'm reflected on this shit. Of course I have set routes, more or less terroritories I cover, but you get yourself a good map of NY State that shows most highways, find the city of Watertown, and you'll see NY Route 3. Follow that route all the way to Vermont. That is our terroritory. And all that area is covered by two trucks, and not overly large trucks, you can get about the same size from Budget. The only reason that regular drivers can rent these vehicles is because you haul no weight. A Commerical Drivers Licence or CDL, is basically the licence you get to drive a vehicle of any sort of weight. A Tractor Trailer can weight a max of 80,000 pounds. That is 40 tons. Deadly. To drive a tractor trailer, you must have what is commonly called a CLASS A Licence. Regular Drivers are CLASS D. This is where you'll get confused. Basically from the bottom. CLASS D drivers can drive cars and pickups, and large vehicles that can only haul so much weight. After that weight is exceeded, you then require a CLASS B Licence. This licence lets you drive large vehicles that do not articulate, or bend. After that, its all CLASS A. I am a Class A, with these things called Endorsements, which means I"m allowed to haul certain types of cargo. I have Tank and Hazardous Materials. Scary enough this combo can make me a deadly weapon, and what is even more shocking is I took the test to get Hazardous Materials, expecting fully to fail it badly because during my training, I slept through that video tape, and I passed. But if I'm not mistaken as of last January that all changed, the instructors told us to get it now, or else we'd be fucked with some new twisted post-911 system.

So I'm driving a truck that is below my skills, a truck meant for Class B Drivers. Can hold up to I think almost half the weight of a tractor trailer, but the max I get is 18 tons. The trick with this though, is the fact that all the weight is placed onto a single frame, which makes the damn thing tipsy. And of course, I get to drive through the mountains. Just the Adirondacks, which are ancient, tamed and worn down mountains, but still a bitch.

But that is the business, fill those little chests you see that say ICE. Or the ones inside, super markets, anybody who needs ice. Its a simple business, and oddly enough at only 70 cents a bag, can earn some cold, heh, cash. My truck gets filled with 9 pallets of "cubed" bagged ice. These are pallets of 7 pound bags of ice, chopped. 285 bags on a pallet, and usually 8 out of 10 pallets in my truck are these cubes. The other 2 out of 10 pallets is Blocked Ice. Can you guess what that is...heh. 10 Pound Blocks, either a block box, which is a wooden crate used over and over again holds 120, or a pallet which is all the blocks stacked and wrapped in plastic, as are the other pallets, 210. Blocks are not made from solid ice, as the cubed ice is being bagged, the smaller pieces drop out from the "tunnels" that feed the machines that bag the ice. Those pieces are compressed at 1800 PSI to create a block.

Inside the factor the ice is feed to machines, things that look like regular small factory bagging machines. In the bagging room we have three, a new more automated one that flings you a bag a second. The old semi-rusted one which was done manually with a big red button. And the block machine. Along the ceiling which is not too high up, enough head room but right there, are large U shaped tunnels, enclosed. Inside is basically a big metal cork-screw, or if you're a farm boy, An Auger, which moves the ice. The block and auto-machine feed from a giant bin that holds the chopped ice. In this bin metal belts move the ice to rotating teeth that make sure it breaks apart into small peices. Those are collected, and moved into the tunnel to feed the machines. This bin is feed by another tunnel, which disappears into the next room.

In the next room you find a machine that is probably about the size of a small out. Its giant, loud, has giant hatches on it, electric motors the size of a refridgerator, compressors, a giant tank of water and two cooler towers outside. Basically its a house sized ice maker. From this beast when cranked to full pours forth 33 tons of ice per day. The water unliked the olden days is supplied by our town water system, cleaner than the river.

The ice is made tunneled to the bin which tunnels to the machines which is bagged and placed on pallets that get wrapped in plastic and stuck in a freezer to be loaded into my truck to be moved to your local store to fill that freezer or chest for the low low price of 70 cents a bag when everyone else is ass fucked at a 1.25, 1.50, 1.75 heh. Well, I get it for free, so HA.

And that is the business of the Iceman.