I remember moving from the Bronx to Queens when I was younger, how modern I thought everything was, especially in the kitchen. Our refrigerator when I was a kid was really modern. At least I thought it was at the time. There was a freezer within the refrigerator that had a couple of metal trays for making ice. I think it took a good 24 hours to make some ice cubes. There was no ice-maker, just those silly little metal trays. In fact, you had to put it under hot water to get out the ice. Then a great invention revolutionized things. Someone came out with a pull handle on the metal tray, so you simply had to lift it up, and the ice cubes would fall all over the place.
AHHHHH, it was really the future...Oh, did I mention what needed to be done when the ice built up all around that little ice compartment ? It looked like the iceberg that hit the titanic. No, it did not defrost by itself. That was the fun part and if you were lucky, your mother would let you do it.(That is defrost it ) First of all, you had to remove the ice trays and throw away the ice. Naturally, you had to shut off the power to the entire unit before doing this. You would then put boiling hot water in the trays and put them back in the fridge to begin the ice melting process. Sometimes we would put a pot of boiling water there instead.
After about 30 minutes of repeating this process, the outer ice build up would begin to melt. Now this did not happen all at once, but required constantly cleaning up the water with either a rag, sponge or something similar. Now comes the fun part. When the melting got a little faster, you would take your mothers hair dryer and carefully aim it at the ice glacier to help it melt. This also took some time... What was really fun began when you were able to peel away the ice with your hands a section at a time. This whole process had to be carefully coordinated......The boiling water in pots and trays, the clean up, the hair dryer, the peeling off. This was no job for an amateur . This took guts, and time and effort. But then it was done and you looked at that wonderful , clean, no iced up freezer compartment, and you knew.................Your job was done..........It was a pathetic process, but someone had to do it.
Now look at the modern day refrigerator. Wow how great it is ?????? I wonder what my granddaughter is going to blog about fifty years from now ? Will it be about her memory of the refrigerator in her house while growing up ?????? Ridiculous Huh????
