The Ice Man Chancy, at Driftwood Inspiration. was talking about how the ice man used to visit when she was a child. How he would chip ice off for the children and use great, huge black tongs to lift the ice block to his shoulder and carry it in and place it in the top of the ice box. And about people putting a sign in the window to let the ice man know that ice was needed. One of the comments was about what happened if you forgot to empty the ice tray (a flood, is what happened).And all of this reminded me of a family story. Background. When my mother was pregnant with me, my parents had an ice man who was a redhead. Since my mother was a brunette and my father was a strawberry blonde, when people would ask my father if he wanted a boy or a girl, he would say, "I don't care, as long as it isn't a redhead." Well, it was obvious the minute I was born that I was a redhead, and he must not have objected because my Aunt Julie was there and she said he kissed me before I had been washed off. (Just in case you are wondering, both of my grandfathers and my Aunt Julie were redheads.}When I was six, my father died. My mother remarried when I was nine and when I was ten, we moved to Puerto Rico for a year. In those days of prop planes, a trip from California to Puerto Rico took three days. We (Mama, Daddy, Forrest, and I) flew from San Francisco to New Orleans the first day, to Miami the second day, and on to San Juan on the third day. Elegant travel. Everyone, including my pregnant mother, dressed up to fly in those days. There were only four seats to a row, the meals were very nice and served on china with good flatware and steak knives for the steaks and tall glasses with ice clinking in them for the water. Everything very, very nice.And, we stayed at elegant hotels along the way. In New Orleans it was the Monteleone, very uptown, very lovely. We ate in the hotel dining room that evening. As the hostess, who was a redhead, seated us she looked at my brunette mother and brunette step-father and brown haired brother and asked me, "Where did you get that lovely red hair?"To which I replied, "Well, Daddy always did say we had a redheaded ice man."

Chancy, at Driftwood Inspiration. was talking about how the ice man used to visit when she was a child. How he would chip ice off for the children and use great, huge black tongs to lift the ice block to his shoulder and carry it in and place it in the top of the ice box. And about people putting a sign in the window to let the ice man know that ice was needed. One of the comments was about what happened if you forgot to empty the ice tray (a flood, is what happened).

And all of this reminded me of a family story. Background. When my mother was pregnant with me, my parents had an ice man who was a redhead. Since my mother was a brunette and my father was a strawberry blonde, when people would ask my father if he wanted a boy or a girl, he would say, "I don't care, as long as it isn't a redhead." Well, it was obvious the minute I was born that I was a redhead, and he must not have objected because my Aunt Julie was there and she said he kissed me before I had been washed off. (Just in case you are wondering, both of my grandfathers and my Aunt Julie were redheads.}

When I was six, my father died. My mother remarried when I was nine and when I was ten, we moved to Puerto Rico for a year. In those days of prop planes, a trip from California to Puerto Rico took three days. We (Mama, Daddy, Forrest, and I) flew from San Francisco to New Orleans the first day, to Miami the second day, and on to San Juan on the third day.


Elegant travel. Everyone, including my pregnant mother, dressed up to fly in those days. There were only four seats to a row, the meals were very nice and served on china with good flatware and steak knives for the steaks and tall glasses with ice clinking in them for the water. Everything very, very nice.

And, we stayed at elegant hotels along the way. In New Orleans it was the Monteleone, very uptown, very lovely. We ate in the hotel dining room that evening. As the hostess, who was a redhead, seated us she looked at my brunette mother and brunette step-father and brown haired brother and asked me, "Where did you get that lovely red hair?"

To which I replied, "Well, Daddy always did say we had a redheaded ice man."