Hello All, Since everyone seems so interested in food, how many of you remember or know of "window boxes"? These were sheet metal boxes that were used to keep food cold during the cooler/colder months. They fit outside a lower window opening and were accessed by raising the lower window. My mom used one when we lived in an upstairs apartment on Church Street in Bridgeton, NJ during the 1930s. She kept milk, etc. in this box. Every once in a while she either forgot or the weather got colder than expected and everything in the box would freeze. Of course, you could not use the box during subfreezing weather. We also had an icebox at that time. I don't recall, but the window box probably served as extra storage space rather than as a primary cooler. The icebox was not that large with part of the interior required to store blocks of ice. The ice man came around every so often. I recall a cardboard sign that people put in their doors or windows to tell the ice man how much ice they needed. I think that the sign had a rotating arrow that could be pointed at numbers indicating either the price or the weight of the ice desired. I do recall 15 cent, 25 cent, etc. pieces of ice. The ice man would use an ice pick to chip the desired piece from 300-pound blocks that were made at the ice house on the east side of East Lake by the railroad. The ice man would pick up the chunk with ice tongs, carry it up the stairs to our apartment and put the ice in the ice box. You don't get service like that anymore. When the ice truck came around in the summer, we kids would pester the ice man for a piece of ice to chew on. I don't recall ever being refused a hunk of ice. I suspect that the ice company used this for advertising or just plain good will, of which there was a lot in those days. There was a raised catwalk beside the railroad siding at the ice house. Men would wheel the 300-pound blocks out across the catwalk and put them in the end of the refrigerator or "reefer" cars. There were two hatches at either ends of the roofs of the reefers for placing the ice. This was the days before mechanical reefer cars came along. A steam engine would haul the loaded cars up to the main line. I suppose that they were used to haul fresh produce from the New Jersey truck farms. During World War II German prisoners of war worked at the ice house. We kids always got a drink of water at the ice house while playing war games along the east shore of East Lake. One time seven or eight of us were at the spigot getting a drink when one of the prisoners came down the stairs with a bucket to get some water. He stood politely three or four steps up the stairway until we all had gotten a drink. I think that all of us were scared to death of that fellow. If you're out there Hans or whoever, drop me a line. Speaking of food, I don't recall Taylor Ham or Pork Roll but have fond memories of scrapple. My wife (who was born in Florida and raised in New Mexico) loves it. We could get it in Lincoln, NE in the 1960s. She had never had it before then. Scrapple is not available here in Montana to my knowledge. I doubt that the natives know what it is, poor souls. Wil Husted Billings, MT