Chicago Iceman: 1930…by Robert M. Katzman
By Robert M. Katzman © August 10, 2014
Galesburg, Illinois antique store
Rickety shop by a ripening cornfield
Dirty windows, cracked glass
Door with a spring that slammed against my ass
As I edged inside
Gloomy, long wooden tables
Seemed to me even the shadows had shadows
***
Shaggy old man sitting behind a counter
Didn’t look up as I nosed around
Must be the worn clothes I wear
Never gives shopkeepers a glint of hope
I wander from table to table
Some sagging from the heavy tools
Piled upon them
***
Once a carpenter
Grandson of a carpenter
Tools, good tools, matter to me
What they’re capable of in the right hands
My hands were the right hands
Until my old body screamed: Stop!
Doesn’t mean I’m not still interested, though
I moved closer to the sagging table
***
A shiny set of red-handled screwdrivers
Still in their package
Next to a gleaming metal box of
A wide selection of socket-wrenches
Squinting in the gloom I saw I guessed right
Damn tools were made in China
Every damn thing is made in China
Use ‘em twice and they break
***
This country used to make things
Durable things that a man could depend on
Not anymore
I kept moving this ‘n that around
Bitching to myself about, oh, everything
Then I see the tongs
Buried under a sledgehammer and a torn canvas tool belt
I took a closer look
“Made by The Pittsburgh Forge”
Son-of-a-bitch!
Made in the USA
***
Big heavy thing
Completely covered in orange rust
Two looped handles on one end
Mean sharp claws on the other
A serious marriage of steel and purpose
Ice tongs
Slave-type labor for the truly desperate
And the memories came flooding back
***
Right after the crash of ‘29
Came the soul-killing Great Depression
Millions lost farms, homes and stores
Grandpa Jacob and Gramma Rose
Were hellbent on keeping their house
On the tough West Side of Chicago
All five kids went to work
Pooling all they made
***
In 1930, my Dad, Israel, eighteen
Nabbed a job on Teivel’s ice-wagon
Old guy’s back was gone
Word was he needed some help
Wearing a torn straw hat
To keep the sun out of his eyes
Long twitching ears poking up through slits
Mendel, the ice-man’s horse, knew all the stops
***
My Dad grabbed a heavy block of ice
With the wide steel tongs
A square block weighed about sixty pounds
And he ran up the tenement’s echoing steps
First floor
Second floor
Third floor
Ice block after ice block after ice block
By the end of his day
He wanted to die
But with Jacob and Rose’s
House on the line
That kept him going
***
Delivered those blocks of ice
To the mass of local immigrants:
To the Irish
To the Jews
To the Poles
The ice wasn’t Catholic
The ice wasn’t Jewish
The ice was, well, just ice
***
My Dad’s hands grew callused and hard
His arms became muscular
And he kept at it for two years
Carpenter jobs opened up for Jacob by ‘32
Sylvia, his daughter, found a job with a lawyer
Milton, his other son, worked at a grocery
All their kids worked and their house was saved
***
I stared at the ancient grimy ice tongs
Wondering where they’d been
How many blocks of ice they dragged
How many hands bled clutching
Those unforgiving steel handles
Seventy, eighty years ago
When Hoover and Roosevelt
Were our Presidents
***
Rubbing my wrinkled hands
Over the tongs’ sandy rust
Over the proud faded words:
Pittsburgh Forge
No one needs you anymore, tongs
No one remembers you anymore, tongs
You’re just scrap now, tongs
***
Then, abruptly moved
By my love for
My long dead father
Unexpected tears
Rolling down my cheeks
Spilling onto those
Damned dusty tongs
I bought them
***************
Publishing News!
Bob Katzman’s two new true Chicago books are now for sale, from him!
Vol. One: A Savage Heart and Vol. Two: Fighting Words
Gritty, violent, friendship, classic American entrepreneurship love, death, heartbreak and the real dirt about surviving in a completely corrupt major city under the Chicago Machine. More history and about one man’s life than a person may imagine.
Please visit my new website: https://www.dontgoquietlypress.com
If a person doesn’t want to use PayPaI, I also have a PO Box & I ship anywhere in America.
Send me a money order with your return and contact info.
I will get your books to you within ten days.
Here’s complete information on how to buy my books:
Vol 1: A Savage Heart and Vol. 2: Fighting Words
My books weigh almost 2 pounds each, with about 525 pages each and there are a total together of 79 stories and story/poems.
Robert M. Katzman
Don’t Go Quietly Press
PO Box 44287
Racine, Wis. 53404-9998 (262)752-3333, 8AM-7PM
Books cost $29.95 each, plus shipping
For: (1)$3.95; (2)$5.95; (3)$7.95; (4)$8.95 (5)$9.95;(6) $10.95
(7) $11.95; (8) $12.95; (9)$13.95 (10)$15.95 (15)$19.95
Shipping by air to most of Europe, due to the weight of my books is $99.00
I am also for hire if anyone wants me to read my work and answer questions in the Chicago/Milwaukee area. Schools should call me for quantity discounts for 30 or more books. Also: businesses, bookstores, private organizations or churches and so on.