Freezer Fire

Some times when I am writing a story another more inter interesting story comes to mind, so I drop the one I was working on. So I dropped the next story I was working on and started this story.

Who would understand the characters of that time would have to have there. This takes place in about 1940. The place was in Greenport LI, NY and the house was our house on Manor Place (across the street from ELIH). The house is no longer there it and 4 others were plowed down for a parking lot 40 years ago. This house has its own story mostly unbelievable but true. It appears in several other stories. Anyway, we had been living there for 2 years and had just got electricity upstairs. We had been living in the dark most of the time the only other lights was the light in the kitchen ceiling and two receptacles on the wall. We had an icebox when we moved in; it would be an antique even back then. We thought we really had it made getting a modern refrigerator that was probably 12 years old. It was one that had all the referent inside in most new refrigerators this was on the top so that it made the refrigerator nearly 7 foot high. This icebox didn’t have any ice in it just two little trays divided by 24 little blocks called cubes. I don’t know why they just didn’t call them ice blocks; I guess they wanted a place to use that word. The fridge was delivered by an old dump truck and it took 3 men to manhandle it up the cement steps. They plugged it in and the lights dimmed in the kitchen, and the light in the ceiling flickered for a while.

One of men said “the fridge takes a lot of juice but once the house gets used to it the light will not flicker.”

The fridge. ran for about an hour and turned off it was getting colder and got down to about 35 but didn’t make any ice yet. However when it turned on again it blew the fuse. When Dad got home he put in a new fuse in. and it blew again, and again. After 4 more trips upstairs to the fuse box Dad fixed it good by putting a penny in front of the fuse. At that time several houses in the area burned down I guess if our house burned down we would have a couple pennies. The fridge became useful after we got used to it.

After two weeks went by there was a strange smell in the kitchen and it was getting stronger.

Mom said “it was the fridge and the gas that made it get cold was leaking.”

It was getting stronger by the minute and we were getting sick from the smell. Mom ushered the four of us kids to her bedroom that was the furthest away from the kitchen.

My brother Alton said “he and my older sister Doris were going to go over to Hubbards' house” (about two houses west of our house.)

So, that left Nancy and me to die! We kept wet face cloths over our noses but that didn’t help. We hung our heads out any windows that we could open. Nancy and I went down stairs across the street to the hospital grounds; it seemed a little better over there. Meanwhile, 3 of our neighbors were trying to work the fridge out the door. One of them had a World War 1 gas mask, however, he couldn’t breath with it on. We thought we would cross the street to Capt Griffin’s house. His house was east of our house across Atlantic Ave..

By this time our neighbor Mr. Zipkas came over yelling, ”What are you try to kill my kids? What kind of gas you using to kill them? I was in the war, they had no gas that bad!”

Mr., Zipkas was recently returned from Europe, I guess he thought these men were up to no good. There were five men; two of them had brought a pick up truck. Now we were getting some! Not so…when three of them tried to go thru the door all three got stuck in their haste to get away from the kitchen. As it was two of them fell backward on to the porch, the third man fell over into the kitchen. They took another hour to extricate the regenerator from the floor. The floor was pretty rotten which didn’t help matters.

The truck was parked against the cement wall on our property, it stuck our almost all the way across the road. The truck plus all the junk they pulled off it to get the refridge. on the truck, had at least 4 cars blocked, two of which came over to see what was going on. It was a bad spot; there had been several accidents in that spot. Just as we were thinking about it a 32 Ford came barreling down the right side of the road, after rounding the corner, not realizing there was a lot more then a couple of cars blocking the road, (there were 4 on the left side, then the truck and three cars waiting on right side.) He slid past four cars but he couldn’t avoid the truck, he went as far to the right as possible. About in that spot was a Silver Maple Tree about 6 inches in diameter; he snapped the tree off about 4 feet from the ground. The tree became a many-branched bush in the coming years. The man driving the car only got a bloody nose as far as we could see. He left the car were it was blocking the road even further. The car and tree were both behind the truck when a few men (janitors from the hospital I thought) came over. What the hell is going on, by now there was about 15 people and 4 more cars, plus a hospital supply truck, a hearse and a big truck back about a block away. God this looks like Macys Parade! Who started this mess? The big truck didn’t have a muffler and it was issuing a cloud of smoke between the hospital and the row of houses.

“!!!!What the hell is there a fire someplace? Somebody exclaimed “Fire, fire I smell smoke! Must be a house down around this stupid corner. Why the hell didn’t somebody make these people on the corner cut that damn hedge down you cant see over it, you have to take a chance and take the corner blind.”

Nancy and I lived behind that hedge, which was the best part of our yard. A car accident once in
awhile cutting the hedge was the only thing Dad did outside. There was about 150 foot of hedge and Dad trimmed it faithfully.
We never thought of cutting it down the rest of the block had hedges on that side of the street.

One of the men coming from the hospital yelled fire, is any body hurt? Did anybody sound the alarm? There is a firebox right at the bottom of the hill that was at the exit of the hospital grounds.

Nancy and I always wondered what happened if you broke that glass and that little lever inside was pulled down, Well!! We were about to find out. At that time the fire boxes covered a certain area when the glass was broken a horn sounded. The horn was so loud it could be heard from Southhold to Orient. The fire boxes each had a code number for example our block number was 38 that met that pulling the handle the horn would automatically sound 3 short blasts and 8 long any ones over and over. That way the fireman could look at the fire chart and would know right away were the fire was. In this case there was no fire but it was too late. We told the man there was no fire (well Nancy did) I was afraid to say anything. The lady next door tried to get the fire dept. but think it was to late. A couple of men went past saying which house is it? I think it may be two houses. We know it’s not the hospital they have a special number.

I think one of the guys said “Maybe somebody didn’t know about the special number and it was really the hospital.”

“The fire is in the hospital! Oh No!” Said one of the men. “The fire is in the hospital! I told them that place is a fire hazard, now it will burn down for sure ,,,,,,,,,,,”

What about our fridge? They finally got the fridge on the truck and maneuvered the truck past the car and tree branches.

“I wonder where the fire is?” said the truck driver “Must be a fire somewhere, sure a lot of cars out here must be 35 cars. I think there must be a fire somewhere in town sure glad it’s down town or something there is sure traffic enough on this street.”

Meanwhile Nancy and I thought Mom might give us hell if we had not stayed upstairs. So we worked are way back through all those cars being held up by the fire. So we worked our way back up stairs just in time for Mom came looking for saying we were SOO GOOD to stay up there in the bedroom.

Meanwhile 2 fire trucks were trying to work there way past the row of cars blocking the street looking for our refrigerator fire.