My Grandma Carey told us lots of stories about the old ice house on Brady Lake in Kent, Ohio. The cutting and gathering of ice off the lake was a big celebration in those days. I also still remember the old ice box that her mother, my great grandmother Harriet, kept in her old kitchen, long past the days ice was delivered to the house.
Mattoon Lake about 50 miles south of where we lived in Champaign. We had a summer cottage on the lake. It was always very cold and quite surreal to walk into the icehouse on a hot summer day, but there were no bodies inside!
And, WOW!, the way you phrased that last sentence just reminded me of the time *I* was the body in the freezer. I got into a fight with my boyfriend—back in the late 70s—on a Sunday in the meat locker section of a closed grocery store where he was the butcher. He was showing me how he cut down a side of beef. Grisly stuff and a long, long day. I got tired of waiting to get out of there, and wouldn’t slide the meat hook down fast enough when he lifted another side up to take the place of the one he’d just chopped up. (I’m pretty sure this was the main impetus for me becoming vegetarian eventually.) Once he finally got the side of beef hooked up, he left the freezer and slammed the door on me and turned off the light. Left me in there. If his uncle Vic hadn’t come by not too long after and heard me banging on the door, my ending might’ve been very similar to Frankie Carbone’s in GOODFELLAS.
This is why I love fiction: One story leads to another . . .
Your “Ice House” resonates. Not everyone has had the experience your character Bill has with Melvin. But your lucid details about the otherwordly liminal space of an icy realm just a threshold away from a “scorchy” summer day echoes similar experiences reader have in their backgrounds. The story itself is a PORTAL.
Thanks for those kind word about the story. When somebody finds relevance in my work, it helps offset the feeling that as a writer, I kind of work in a vacuum. Did your boyfriend intend to leave you in that freezer? Or was it an accident? Pretty scary to me.
Yes: the feeling of being in a vacuum is the lonely part of writing. Here’s to more readers/writers feeling bold enough to comment on the work that resonates.
I remember being a kid and getting ice blocks from an old icehouse during summers at a lake in central Illinois.
Which lake in central Illinois?
What a “cool” memory!
My Grandma Carey told us lots of stories about the old ice house on Brady Lake in Kent, Ohio. The cutting and gathering of ice off the lake was a big celebration in those days. I also still remember the old ice box that her mother, my great grandmother Harriet, kept in her old kitchen, long past the days ice was delivered to the house.
Mattoon Lake about 50 miles south of where we lived in Champaign. We had a summer cottage on the lake. It was always very cold and quite surreal to walk into the icehouse on a hot summer day, but there were no bodies inside!
Are you sure there were no bodies?
And, WOW!, the way you phrased that last sentence just reminded me of the time *I* was the body in the freezer. I got into a fight with my boyfriend—back in the late 70s—on a Sunday in the meat locker section of a closed grocery store where he was the butcher. He was showing me how he cut down a side of beef. Grisly stuff and a long, long day. I got tired of waiting to get out of there, and wouldn’t slide the meat hook down fast enough when he lifted another side up to take the place of the one he’d just chopped up. (I’m pretty sure this was the main impetus for me becoming vegetarian eventually.) Once he finally got the side of beef hooked up, he left the freezer and slammed the door on me and turned off the light. Left me in there. If his uncle Vic hadn’t come by not too long after and heard me banging on the door, my ending might’ve been very similar to Frankie Carbone’s in GOODFELLAS.
This is why I love fiction: One story leads to another . . .
Your “Ice House” resonates. Not everyone has had the experience your character Bill has with Melvin. But your lucid details about the otherwordly liminal space of an icy realm just a threshold away from a “scorchy” summer day echoes similar experiences reader have in their backgrounds. The story itself is a PORTAL.
Thanks for those kind word about the story. When somebody finds relevance in my work, it helps offset the feeling that as a writer, I kind of work in a vacuum. Did your boyfriend intend to leave you in that freezer? Or was it an accident? Pretty scary to me.
It was on purpose. Very scary!
I apologize for hijacking your comments section!
Yes: the feeling of being in a vacuum is the lonely part of writing. Here’s to more readers/writers feeling bold enough to comment on the work that resonates.
Always happy to hear from you. Maybe we get some dialogue going here with others!