The Iceman is special to the Mirror by Michael C. Jordan

As the boy entered the massive icehouse door facing the Cabin Branch tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, the brutally cold air stunned him.  The shock reminded him of how his skin felt last November, when on a dare, he dove into the frigid water of a swimming pool.

As his eyes became accustomed to the poorly lit chamber, he focused on the large cakes of ice stored there.  Each one weighed at least three hundred and sixty pounds; three times his own weight.  The task at hand was dangerous for a grown man, let alone a twelve-year-old boy.  He had seen these massive cakes fall and break into chunks of ice capable of doing great bodily harm.  If one of these whole cakes fell on him, it would kill him or cripple him for life.  He was afraid… but he had something to prove.

He had the equipment he needed:  heavy gloves, ice tongs and an ice pick that was sharp, straight, and true.  He thought of wearing his steel-toed boots, but he knew that if a full cake of ice fell on those boots as he was lowering it to the floor, it could collapse the steel and sever the toes from his feet.  Crushed toes could heal, but severed toes were… well… severed.

Photograph unknown

Earlier that morning he had asked for a pay raise.  He had been working at the icehouse for several months, alongside men who made twenty times his rate of pay.  He felt that if he did the same work as the men, he should receive the same pay.  But his employer did not share his logic.

His employer, who also happened to be his father, shared very little of his son’s logic or few of his opinions on life in general.  When the boy approached him, armed with what he thought to impeccable logic concerning the disparity of the current pay scale, he was rebuffed with an opposing impeccable logic.  To wit, “Son, if you want to be paid like a full-fledge Iceman, you must be able to do all the work required of one”.  He told the boy that when he could lay down a cake of ice and cut it into twelve equal pieces without breakage, then and only then, could he hope to be paid as a full-fledged Iceman.

Not long after their conversation, the boy stood alone in the frosty room, facing the great dangerous masses of frozen water.  He had witnessed the procedure used to lower these heavy monoliths many times, but with varying results.  Sometimes the cake was lowered with ease and grace, if the ice tongs bit sharply and deeply into the top section of the ice before it was lowered, and the Iceman was strong enough to gently place it on the floor.  He had also seen those three-hundred-and-sixty-pound-giants slip from a man’s hands and crash to the floor as the man scrambled to avoid the ice from crushing a part of his body.

The boy blinked. . .then, with the aid of his tongs, he pried one of the cakes loose from the others.  Each of the cakes of ice stood about four feet high, were two and one-half feet wide and ten inches deep.  After securing the tongs to the top edge of the cake and placing his left foot at its base, he pulled.  The cake tilted, its forward edge became a temporary fulcrum balancing its own massive weight for just an instant before the strain of hundreds of pounds of ice were transferred to the boy’s muscles.  He took up the strain of the falling mass and lowered the ice gently and gracefully to the floor with no breakage.  This was followed by the laying down of two other cakes with similar results.  Finally, by multiple thrusts of his ice pick he completed the job of reducing the three cakes of ice into separate piles of twelve equal pieces.  He had met, and then exceeded, his father’s challenge.

He attempted to a second time that day to secure an increase in pay.  But again, he was refused based on his inability to perform all the duties required of an Iceman.  At that point in the conversation, he led his employer to not one, but three successfully lowered and dissected cakes of ice, whereupon he was granted a pay raise.  Not equal to the men, but a raise tripling the amount of is current salary.  No longer would he receive one dollar per eight-hour workday; he would now receive three, in recognition of his ability to execute gently and gracefully the duties of a full-fledged Iceman.

Note:  The boy in this story is, of course, me growing up in Baltimore.  It is an account of my psychological passage to manhood.  Additionally, my paternal grandfather was witness to this vignette, and only chuckled in delight at my achievement!

Thelma Peterson (Photo Phillip Spohn)

Local Artist Thelma Peterson has entered “Tiny Desk Contest” with her original song Beaches of Normandy, as a tribute to her dad, Cary L. Jarvis, who landed D-Day, first wave, on Omaha Beach. Thelma told the Mirror, “The song also for all who have bravely served our country to ensure its freedom.  I wrote the song after returning from Normandy with my dad for the D-Days 60^th landing anniversary. It was a very emotional trip, and I wrote this song soon after returning. I don’t perform it often, as it is a hard one to make it through without choking up.”

Watch Thelma perform Beaches of Normandy below:

The culinary arts are becoming a major driver for the Cape Charles economy. Modern Culinary Arts students study many different aspects of food. Specific areas of study include butchery, chemistry and thermodynamics, visual presentation, food safety, human nutrition and physiology, international history, the manufacture of food items (such as the milling of wheat into flour or the refining of cane plants into crystalline sucrose), and many others. For those hoping to help take Cape Charles cuisine to the next level, state of the art training will be available through Tidewater Community college just across the bay in downtown Norfolk.

TCC to Take Over Greyhound Station and Glass Wheel in the NEON
March 9, 2018 By City of Norfolk

Mayor Kenneth Cooper Alexander announced today at his annual State of the City address an innovative new partnership with Tidewater Community College that will transform Norfolk’s NEON District by providing increased educational and economic opportunities for the community and all of Hampton Roads.

Release via the City of Norfolk and TCC.

The City of Norfolk is donating to the TCC Real Estate Foundation the site of the Greyhound bus station at the corner of Brambleton and Monticello avenues to make way for a dynamic cultural and academic building in the heart of the NEON District.

The 47,000-square-foot Patricia & Douglas Perry TCC Center for Visual & Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management will be a jewel, he said.

“This is an incredible opportunity to build on the vibrancy and opportunity that is being created in the NEON District,” said Mayor Alexander. “We are extremely grateful for the support of the Perry family, and their ongoing efforts to make Norfolk a destination for the arts and culture.”

The project, with an anticipated completion date of summer 2020, will be funded entirely by private donations raised through Go Further! TCC’s Campaign for a Competitive Workforce. Norfolk’s Patricia and Douglas Perry are the lead donors in the initiative.

The Perrys were early patrons of the NEON District. They created the Glass Wheel Studio on Olney Road and supported the Hurrah Players’ move to their new headquarters on West Wilson Avenue in 2017.

As part of the TCC project, they have agreed to donate the Glass Wheel Studio to the college, which will house its renowned glass-blowing program, newly developed glass fusing program, ceramics, sculpture and public exhibition spaces there. The TCC Pat and Doug Perry Glass Wheel Arts Center @ NEON could open as soon as summer 2019.

The collaboration among the city, the Patricia and Douglas Perry Foundation and the college is “a transformative moment for TCC and Norfolk,” said college President Edna V. Baehre-Kolovani. It will further energize the NEON District and nearby St. Paul’s area by:

Expanding TCC’s one-of-a-kind visual arts education program
Training the next generation of chefs with a comprehensive culinary arts program
Creating opportunities for collaboration between culinary and visual arts programs
Providing, among five culinary program kitchens, a test kitchen open to the community and prospective entrepreneurs
Inaugurating a program in hospitality and restaurant management
Providing dual-enrollment opportunities for Norfolk high school students and workforce education to residents
Creating a vibrant and inviting dining and arts experience for students, residents and visitors
“TCC, the Perrys and the City of Norfolk share more than a vision for the arts,” said President Kolovani. “As wonderful as this new building will be, this is a venture that relies on community engagement and collaborative partnerships that are all integral to the effort to revitalize the NEON District.

“Nothing we have talked about today would be possible without the generous support of the Perrys.”

TCC has long sought a new home in which to expand its culinary arts program, the only nationally accredited one at a public institution in Hampton Roads. Currently located in the Stanley Walker Technology Building at 350 Granby St., the program currently has 224 students.

This is a rendering of what the “Patricia and Douglas Perry TCC Center for Visual & Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management” may look like. The center will sit on the site of the Greyhound Bus Station, currently located at the corner of Granby and Brambleton in Downtown Norfolk (Courtesy of the City of Norfolk)