Ice

Caring for zoo animals in Phoenix involves watering the turtles. Street surfaces are so hot in some places of Arizona that falling and lying on a surface can result in third degree burns. While Houston’s days may say 99 degrees, the weight of humidity raises the “feels like” possibility to over 100. Is it any wonder we envision stretches of polar ice? Global warming is not my climate change of choice. I have lived in days of no ac, drawing the blinds and sitting under an oscillating fan. One trip to England in summer offered only one small cube of ice that melted as I watched.

The rich and famous of the early Egyptians and Romans had means of gathering snow and preserving it in vaults near mountains for a cooling moment. Real progress in ice availability goes to the entrepreneurship of New Englander Fredric Tudor beginning in the early 1800’s. Over decades and financial failures and successes, he became a millionaire harvesting ice from various ponds and shipping it to far away places. He learned to pack it tightly and cover it with sawdust. (Yes, really!) Though progress required time in debtor’s prison, his ultimate success was shipping 180 T of ice for four months over 16,000 miles to India. 80 T survived the trip and made a profit. Tudor had the market cornered until the arrival of electricity and make your own ice at home.

Ice became a defining element in wise sayings. What you know is just the tip of the iceberg. That deal sounds risky, like walking on thin ice. Be on your guard talking to him; he can sell ice to an Eskimo. To break the ice I need to find a topic that interests everyone. Create a survival attitude by pouring a tall glass of iced tea, the Southern solution to hot days. I’m adding a memory of snow on my front yard and having to cover plants for protection. I really didn’t want that time to last very long either. In the larger picture, balance these two verses and look forward to the Autumnal Equinox.

As heat and drought snatch away the melted snow – Job 24:19

For as long as Earth lasts,
    planting and harvest, cold and heat,
Summer and winter, day and night
    will never stop.” Genesis 8:22