A vice box is essential to two-fifths of us

MIDDLEBURGH — The OMOTM traveled to the Middleburgh Diner on Jan. 14 and I enjoyed my waffle with one egg over easy and two link sausages and plenty of good hot coffee. I waited a whole week for that waffle, and it did not disappoint. Ordering the waffle did start another conversation about “real” maple syrup and the “other” maple syrup.

That conversation started me thinking about asking one of the proprietors of one of the several establishments here in the Hilltown area that make, or rather, produce “real” maple syrup to join the OMOTM for a free breakfast and give us a short talk on how the process works.

Just for my own information, I asked my old friend, Mr. Google, what do you call a place that makes maple syrup. To quote Mr. Google, “A place that makes maple syrup is called a sugar house, sugar shack, or sugar cabin. The process of making maple syrup is called sugaring.”

I know that early each spring, this industry gets its act together and goes to work and that several of them are open to the public for tours or at least encourage the public to visit to learn about the maple-syrup-making process and by the way, they will even sell you some new maple syrup fresh from their own “sugar shack.”

I even thought I might revive an old OMOTM custom of an occasional field trip, and visit the sugar shack of our speaker when it is in operation this spring. We shall see.

The Beer Fridge

A topic of refrigerators came up at one of the tables. Not new ones. Old ones that still work but are no longer able to handle the requirements of a growing family or maybe it is just time for a model that has an ice maker.

I don’t mean just four or five ice cube trays that don’t even match, I mean a real ice-cube maker, or how about a cold-water dispenser, or maybe you are tired of looking at that 25-year-old avocado-colored refrigerator that just keeps working and will not die.

Maybe you would just settle for a new frost-free refrigerator, painted in a new modern color, that you don’t have to manually defrost anymore.

Whatever the reason, you now have an old refrigerator that still runs and you just can’t bring yourself to throw it out. What to do with it?

Give it to the kids? That's a good idea. But sometimes they are not too excited about your 25-year-old avocado refrigerator that once held baby pictures of them, held on the door with magnets. Don’t get mad or upset with your daughter or daughter-in-law when you find out that they are not bashful about expressing their negative opinion, in a polite way, of course.

So, in the meantime, the old fridge has been relegated to the garage and somehow, some way, magically and thoroughly mysteriously, a six-pack of beer has appeared inside, and it is cold! Soon after, a couple six-packs of soda and three more six-packs of beer are in there to replace the original six-pack that didn’t last long.

Thus, The Beer Refrigerator is born! Soon that extra milk is there. Leftover turkey from Thanksgiving finds its way to the Beer Fridge in the garage. Some frozen food also arrives in the top freezer.

When you can't find it, or any food item for that matter, someone is going to use the new household phrase, “Did you check the beer fridge in the garage?”

Now, some beer refrigerators are found in the basement next to the workshop or washer and drier, where, if you are exceptionally lucky, the colors match! 

Now that old refrigerator you couldn’t give away, has once again risen in stature to the prominence it once held, albeit, it is now in the basement or garage. It is indispensable! You can’t live without the old beer fridge. Then, the inevitable happens, it dies. Finally.

It is now a crisis! You are not going to buy another new refrigerator. The new one is still new. But you have to act promptly. Maybe someone, who doesn’t know the value of a beer refrigerator, has an old, perfectly good refrigerator they want to get rid of fast.

Just give them a couple of bucks and go take it off their hands and put it right where your old beer fridge was. Who cares if the door opens the other way? You can fix that. Yeah, I know, the color is wrong, but nobody cares! It’s a beer refrigerator! We are back in business. Life is good.

I did a quick survey of the OFs present at the Middleburgh Diner on Tuesday morning to see how many had a beer refrigerator. I was surprised to find the ratio was around 60 percent to 40 percent against having a beer refrigerator.

I was expecting a ratio of about 80 percent to 20 percent in favor of having a beer refrigerator. Could this be a phenomenon that we age out of? Could be. Food for thought. Another column, another time. I'll ask my friend, Mr. Google; he knows everything. I'll let you know.

All this talk about beer has made me thirsty. I think I’ll go out to the garage and open the beer fridge and see if I can find a beer behind the extra milk, lettuce, potatoes, soda, etc. Those OMOTM joining in this discussion Tuesday morning were: Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Ed Goff, Hon Albert Raymond, Roland Tozer, Frank A. Fuss, Marty Herzog, Jamey Darrah, Wm Lichliter, George Washburn, Russ Pokorny, Frank Burns, Jack Norray, Herb Bahrmann, Gerry Cross, John Jazz, Dick Dexter, Lou Schenck, and me.