If you were raised in the south, chances are your family had a deep freeze. No, I don't mean a night when the temperatures were way below 32 degrees; I mean a big freezer. Some were upright, like a refrigerator, and some were like a big chest that opened from the top. I don't think I ever heard my parents and grandparents call ours anything except a deep freeze. Come to think of it, I don't think I heard anybody refer to it as anything except a deep freeze.
We kept ours down in the basement when I was a kid. It was over in the area of the basement where we stored the Mason jars of vegetables, fruits and juices that Grandma had preserved. Our deep freeze was also close to where I kept my games and toys. If I wasn't watching TV upstairs in the family room, I was downstairs in the basement playing. And for this reason, Mom and Grandma would keep popsicles in the deep freeze for me. Although the deep freeze housed my popsicles, I'm not ashamed to say I was afraid of it. Mom and Grandma had put the fear into me and would repeatedly remind me of what would happen if I didn't make sure the deep freeze door was closed properly. Needless to say, whenever I would get something out of the deep freeze, I would push against the door as hard as I could, just to make sure it was closed. In all of the years that we had the deep freeze down in the basement, only once did we have an 'issue' with the door being left open. To this day it remains a family mystery who the guilty party was.
5 comments:
My first quest upon moving into the house was to get a deep freeze for the garage. Call it grandmotherly insight but I rushed to hhGregg upon receiving my income tax return in 2001 and bought an upright. I didn't think the Frigidaire would survive the intense garage heat of repeated summers and fretted every season when the sides were too hot to touch but the thing has lasted now for five summers. How wonderful it is to leisurely cook soups, stews and sauces during the long drawn winters, while sipping beer, engaging in meaningful conversation and simply inserting the FoodSaver bags in the deep freeze. The deep freeze has given me the option to stockpile anything, whether meat or vegetables during seasonal grocery sales or fresh produce from my parents. Upon inception of the deep freeze into the garage, I vowed to God that if the neighborhood ever experienced a catastrophic windstorm that rendered it isolated, that I will grill everything in the deep freeze for the benefit of my neighbors. The love of my deep freeze has compelled me to consider stacking the washer and dryer in the laundry foyer to accommodate yet another deep freeze.
The laundry issue was another source of drama for the family this summer. We finally got another washer and dryer, and the great debate was over where to put them. Background first -- we just got hooked up to the sewers last year, and till then we said that we would never have another washer and dryer while we were on the septic tank. So as soon as we got hooked up with MSD, the great debate was on about where to put the new washer and dryer. After many choices, Bud made the final decision and put them in the basement. His reasoning was that I was still "young" enough to run up and down the stairs carrying baskets full of laundry.
I have a deep freeze in my garage that was my grandmother's. Bad thing about it is that my husband piles so much stuff on the top of it, you don't want to move everything to be able to get in it. Then, I always want to buy all this frozen stuff that goes on sale and I forget about it or don't want to take the time to move all the stuff off the top so then it sits in there for 5 years and I have to eventually throw it out. So for me, they are a curse - LOL.
Our deep freeze is now out in the garage, too, MP. It's just a miracle of science and technology how it can endure summer temps in the upper 90s and still keep our food frozen. I think I'm going to buy a box of Pop-Ice and put them in the deep freeze, just like Grandma and Mom would buy for me.
I'm afraid my deep freeze memories aren't as fond as everyone else's.
Way down in the hills of Eastern Kentucky where my grandparents are from, everyone had a deep freeze. They kept it on the "back porch", which was really an enclosed room on the back of the house.
My Dad's mom always had food in her deep freeze, but my maternal grandmother had hers unplugged. It just sat on the back porch. I was terrified of both of them.
My evil older "country" cousins had told me that my grandfather who had passed away years earlier was buried under the floor boards of the back porch. Some how my 6 year old "city girl" imagination decided that the deep freeze was some type of portal to the grave under the floor. I then deducted that the other grandmother's deep freeze must posess the same powers.
Eventually I got tall enough to open the lid and reach down inside the deep freeze so I was asked to go fetch things from it. I realized it was just for storing and preserving food, but until I was grown, I had a chill go down my spine every single time I lifted the lid.
No wonder I've been in and out of therapy most of my adult life.
Post a Comment