Memories of Dad, Vintage Autos and Ice Boxes by Kay Derr

My guess is it was 1945.  Dad had a black crank-type car. I'm not sure what year the car was and, in fact, I don't know the model but it had one of those fold-up hoods.  I remember sitting in the front seat of that old relic on a freezing cold day under the giant leafless maple tree in our front yard.  I can still see the black-knobbed gear shift sticking out of the floor next to me as I shivered waiting for Dad.  Finally, he grabbed the crank and began cranking at the front of the car.  I remember then he would jump back into the driver's seat and rev the engine.  He'd repeat this until it started.  When the stubborn thing refused to start...well I won't tell you what he did with the crank, but it was accompanied by a string of strange words.

Lucky it was winter time as we were headed to Peter's Ice Plant.  Located on East Market Street (just next to the then "non-existent" laundromat back in the day) Dad would pull up next to the dock and pay for a block of ice.  The ice man would grab that chunk of ice with his "pliers"  and plop it onto the bumper of our car. Off we'd go down the street and across the bridge to our house on Avenue E & 4th Streets in Riverside.  In the summer time, stopping at the ice plant had to be the last stop, as the ice melted in fast drops all the way home.

Our ice box, as I recall, was a white one.  It looked sort of like this one in the photo:

Later my Dad bought a 50's-something blue Dodge over at Johnny Wagner's garage (presently about where Burger King stands).  I won't forget that Dodge as I inherited it after my Dad died when I was in high school.  I remember it had what the boys called "a slippery six."  It was a standard shift drive and I could easily "slip" my foot in a faster motion which helped a lot when I was stopped at that dreaded hill on Railroad Street across from the present Dunkin Donut.

One day I was driving down Mill Street on an early summer evening.  Of course, the kids (high school classmates) were hanging out as was the thing back in those days.  I recall having to blow the horn on my old Dodge. A bunch of kids hanging out in front of Courogen's Restaurant laughed and I realized, for the first time, that I had an attention-getter horn.  It was the only thing about me that ever got a guy's attention.  I loved it!

I'm not sure what ever happened to Dad's old Dodge, but I can still hear the sound of the horn and how cheap gas was back in the day.  Neither do I know whatever happened to our old ice box after Mom and Dad replaced it with a real refrigerator, a Kelvinator I suppose.  Dreaming of the those old days bring a smile to my face.  I like to recall how we kids pitched in together for 58 cents worth of gas up at Emil Brady's garage, enough to get us to Bloomsburg to Dixie's Skating Rink.  I like to remember my sister and me. on our knees, watching out the back window of our old crank-car in the summertime so we might watch the water drops from the ice dapple the roadway.  But I guess now Dad's old cars are in some cemetery for rusty cars and the old ice box remain only in memory.  If I had photos of them, I'm sure they would join others on the fireplace mantel...among the dust.