Eugene O’Neill wrote “The Iceman Cometh.” I only learned this week that his title was inspired by the New Testament book of Matthew, specifically, the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. As the story goes, ten virgins were chosen to be part of a wedding. The bridegroom was delayed, so they all fell asleep. At midnight a voice cried out “Behold, The bridegroom is coming! Come out to meet him!”
Five of them ran out of oil for their lamps and had to go get more. While they were away trying to find an open lamp oil shop, the bridegroom came. The five smart ones who brought extra oil were there to meet him. As they went into the chamber where the wedding feast was being held, the door was shut on the five foolish virgins and they were locked out, which seems harsh to me, but thems was biblical times, brothers and sisters – can I get an amen?
It’s a bit of a stretch, but the moral of the story is everyone needs to be prepared for Judgment Day or they’ll be locked out of the Kingdom of Heaven for all time.
What Does The Iceman Cometh Have To Do With Rocky Raccoon?
I was born with an overdeveloped inquisitive gland
Of late, I’ve taken to devoting the wee hours before dawn on Sunday to setting aside my usual rigorous and disciplined work for play. Sunday is now an adventure day, the day I’m a detective following leads. It’s the day I don’t stop at what’s just around the corner, but carry on past the next corner and the next corner, following trails like a coon dog follows coons.
Stop!
I’m fed up with judgmental nannies cherry-picking words they tell me are offensive. For real lunacy, check this out. My nannyware™ just told me that the word coon is offensive. I lived many years in the South and I can tell you that one group really offended by coons are coon dogs, bred to hunt raccoons and often injured by their sharp teeth and claws.
I can also tell you of a fraternity at a college in a dry state that rented a place called Coonhunters Lodge for drinking, debauching, and dancing to live music. And finally, my very large friend Larry Conrad was nicknamed Coondog, so back off nannyware™. He had a rocket serve that wore me out every time we played tennis together. RIP, Coonie.
Sticking with the raccoon theme for another moment, do you remember how Rocky Raccoon fell back in his room, only to find Gideon’s Bible. Gideon checked out; he left it, no doubt, to help with good Rocky’s revival? Back to our story.
Root cellars*
Long before there were icemen and iceboxes, people stored vegetables in root cellars. Root vegetables stayed edible the longest because they were tough – potatoes and carrots, to name two.
These were typically farmers who grew their own food
Out on the prairie, root cellars were dug into the side of a hill when one was available. Otherwise, homesteaders built their own by piling up sod around a simple entranceway. The earth is a good insulator and when the air is cool and dry, potatoes, carrots, and other root vegetables are kept from freezing in the winter and from spoiling and rotting during the summer. These cool spots were also a great place to store canned goods, even though canned goods are stored in jars, because most people don’t have a home cannery.
Today’s question: Why do we use glass jars to can vegetables and fruits?
Industrial food preservation relied heavily on metal cans, making “canning” the standard verb for sealing and processing shelf-stable
When tornadoes threatened or when injuns were on the warpath, people would huddle safely inside their root cellars until the danger passed
Note: My nannyware is not as correct as it thinks it is. It tried to correct injuns, which I used deliberately for color. But it corrects injuns to Indians, not to indigenous peoples. Go figure.
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*Or as J.C. says, The places where fans of last-place teams come to cheer feebly.
That’s it, we’re out of time for this week. Come back next Monday and I’ll tell you how the Boston Ice King Frederic Tudor’s frozen water empire changed the world.
