“Tell me what life was like in the olden days,” I used to say to my dad. By this I meant when he was a kid like me. He told me that his family had an “ice box” instead of a refrigerator.
“The ice melted, of course,” my father said, “so I rigged up a little tube to drain the water out into the back yard. My mother was so pleased.” I thought about our huge refrigerator which hummed quietly day and night, never needing attention, and was glad I didn’t live in the olden days. I decided I would always live right here in the present.
I was one of the “grandchildren” and we were surrounded by parents and grandparents. Then slowly, as slowly as ice melting in the ice box, our grandparents died and then our parents. While we were still calling ourselves “the grandchildren,” we were becoming the grandparents.
“When I was a kid, a horse and wagon delivered the milk to my neighborhood.” I hear the voice telling this story and am surprised to find it’s mine. How did my childhood become the olden days?
“A horse delivered your milk?” my granddaughter asks.
“Yes,” I say, “and he knew which houses to stop at all along the street.”
Writer Karen Anderson lives in Traverse City. Find all of her essays for IPR here.
