Yesterday while my boyfriend, Dan, and I were driving from lunch to school, we found a
museum where there was never one before.
Seeing it there caused Dan to stop the car in the street.
Reading the sign -
"Knowlton's Ice Museum of North America" - impressed us into parking and window-peeking.
Dan and I are both in love with the idea of anything Michigan- (especially Port Huron-) related.
Also, I have a feature story due this Tuesday by 11a.m., and just looking at the windows from the street made me start to rethink the "Buffalo-Wild-Wings-is-rocking-out-almost-every-night-in-an-otherwise-slumping-economy" idea I was working on.
I could see an old Party Time Ice sign inside and immediately my mouth was watering.
A good local history piece is far too tempting for someone like me to pass up.
Unfortunately, when we got close enough to the window to see that there was a white sign on it, we could also read the black type spelling, "Open by appointment only."
Great. There is no way, with the schedule I
already have, that I can make an appointment to come here, get an interview, take the tour, write it up, work it into a story, and have it completely polished by Tuesday. B-Dubs it is.
That's more or less what went on in my head.
Out of my mouth came all sorts of verbal frustrations which I will spare you.
There was a woman with a black work coat and a ponytail, smoking a cigarette by the door.
I hadn't noticed her, but she definitely noticed me. After...expressing to Dan, outloud, my anger towards the situation, the woman yelled over to me from where she stood.
"It's locked!"
I was confused but quickly noticed that we were standing near a door with another hours of operation list.
Dan called something back to her, and whatever it was worked with her somehow, because she took out some keys and unlocked the door behind her, beckoning us to follow.
She didn't look like a museum-keeper to me, and it turns out she's not. She's the cleaning lady who had no problem whatsoever fetching the owner when I mentioned I'm a student who's interesting writing a feature on the place.
The proprietor, Linda Knowlton, came into the breezeway where we stood waiting.
Linda, herself, is a tiny little thing, maybe five feet tall, but she wore a tremendous smile. (I would place her in her late fifties, but I could be way off.)
Linda's family owns the museum (which she told me used to be located on Yeager St., but moved to Grand River Ave. last June), but she pretty much runs it alone these days, she said.
Her father, Norman F. Knowlton founded Party Time Ice in 1966, and has been collecting ice memorabilia with his wife, Agnes, for 30-40 years, Linda said.
Before I could ask more than a few basic questions, she started on the spiel she has probably used countless times before:
"The ice industry was was of the 10 largest industries at one time in the U.S!"
We didn't know that, we told her. She asked us if we had 15 free minutes. We said we did, and she walked us into, and across the museum (right through the middle, so we caught glimpses of all sorts of ice picks and dolls and wagons and old bottles) to a small screening area where there were three rows of five, or six chairs each and a TV stand in the corner, complete with TV and DVD/VCR combo.
Dan and I sat down and Linda handled a DVD case as she spoke to us. She said the film had been made about three years ago now, and that her dad was in a lot of it.
After she popped it in she was gone...
This is where things got exciting for Dan and me. ("The History of Ice Harvesting" might not sound that fascinating to some people, but to us it's pretty cool.)
It's kind of weird to imagine people out on the lakes and rivers...farming ice (lol). That's what they did, though, and that's what the movie explained - the ice industry from its rise to its eventual vanishment.
We were completely absorbed, and I furiously scribbled down every word I could get, because it was all great stuff.
Afterward, Linda asked if we'd care for a tour, and we both said yes we sure would!
It probably took 20 minutes for her to take us through the winding exhibits. The path is marked with yellow arrows for unguided tourist. I remember thinking I would definitely not be able to work out the way without Linda's help, but she snaked left here and right there like it was nothing.
She was obviously trying to hurry, and I think it was because she has a story for every other piece in the whole museum, and she wanted to be sure to get to them all.
Where it came from, when they got it, why it means so much to her father...her father, who is 90 and still drives and has a brand new office with high-speed internet...
She had a lot to say.
It was fine with me, because I have a lot of words due Tuesday morning, and the more information I can get, the better.
It was definitely fine with Dan, because, like I said, Dan
loves all things Michigan-related.
Actually, he was the one asking most of the questions...which was also fine with me =] .
In the end, 16 pages of my little, handy-dandy notebook were filled with material I gathered from Knowlton's Ice Museum.
When I told her I might have a few more questions for her, Linda said I could come back anytime. She gave me her home number and said, no, of course she wouldn't mind if I brought a camera next time.
I am still high from this!
I have officially gotten something for free as a writer! Woot woot!
That, and I'm happy about this "Back When We Had Ice Men" story. It's locally-tied, which is always a huge, huge plus for the news and for me, personally. And also the story is already there, just waiting to be written.
I like that.
So, I'm feeling very excited.
I have a whole bunch of work ahead of me, but I feel good about it.
Three cheers for stories that fall into your lap =]
