The Ice Man

Here he comes! Someone yelled, and everyone ran for the curb. Down the street came an old Model T truck with hard rubber tires. The sides of the truck were painted red, big white letters spelled out Lambert's Ice Co. The noisy old truck rolled to a stop. There were no doors on the truck. And Mr. Lambert slid from the seat to the pavement with out touching the running board.

As we watched from the sidewalk, it seemed to take forever for him to appear at the back of the truck. Most of us were quiet, but here and there a little voice would say, "Hello Mr. Lambert." He threw back the canvas to expose the huge cakes of ice, then he selected an ice pick from the five or six stuck in the side wall, with all the care of a physician preparing for an operation.

He glanced up at the square signs in the windows of the houses. 10-15-25 + 50 were printed on each of the four sides, 15 is up. He selects a block of ice and cuts off a piece. Little chunks of ice fly around. Then he took down his ice tongs, clamped them to the ice, and lifted it to his shoulders and started off towards the house.

As soon as he was out of sight a yell went up and everyone was trying to get a piece of ice and pop it into his mouth, then get one for each hand.

When Mr. Lambert reappeared, all looked normal again, except some of the kids seemed to have a sudden case of the mumps, or water in their pockets or leaky fists.

I know now the little smile played across his face as he pulled down the canvass to shield the ice from the sun. I also recall he wasn't very good at cutting ice either. He seemed to break a lot of it into little pieces.