Worst of all is when you can’t find it – and you know he’s there somewhere, possibly landing on your food (yecch) or even you when you’re not paying attention. I’m positively neurotic when it comes to finding the offending airborne intruder, and disposing of him before I do anything else.
Our old pal Reddy Kilowatt doesn’t like flies either, judging from his reaction in the ad above, which ran in the Lorain Journal back on July 28, 1938. Of course, that’s one monstrous fly, rendered in disgusting detail.
The focus of the ad is the promotion of the new Frigidaire electric refrigerators to replace the old ice box that kept its contents cool with – what else? – a block of ice.
My mother remembers her family’s ice box well. It was in a little shack-like structure on the back of their house on Sixth Street, where the ice could melt and not make a mess. She also remembers going with her father over to the Lorain Crystal Ice Company to buy ice from the vending machine there, and hearing the various clunks as the ice made its way down the chute.
Anyway, during those Depression days, the refrigerator in the Ohio Public Service Company ad could be had for $4.00 a month (that’s $77.00 a month using one of those online inflation calculators).
At that price, I reckon I might have had to buy a fly swatter instead.
3 comments:
I remember that my mom and the other Grove Film always called the refrigerator the "ice box", much the same way that many baseball fans will continue to call the Cleveland team the Indians.
Yeah, if a fly the size of a refrigerator made it inside my house, I'd run for cover too.
My father was another old-timer who called it the "ice box." Then again, he would refer to aircraft as "aeroplanes."
We have a large, oak, 1920s ice box in the den that serves as my "office." It goes great with the historical/antique decor and makes a great liquor cabinet.
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