The Iceman

Before John Marley appeared in Love Story and Cat Ballou as the father of daughters played by Ali McGraw and Jane Fonda, and in The Godfather as a movie producer who wakes up in a blood soaked bed (he's a VERY sound sleeper apparently) with a horse's head, he was Garabet, a Greek in Turkey who makes money by chipping ice off a mountain in the 1963 Elia Kazan movie America, America. Having seen Marley in all those movies before ever seeing him in America, America, you're in for  a surprise when you see him in Kazan's autobiographical movie. Kazan was born in Turkey in 1909.

And lest you think that chipping ice off a mountain and selling it is an odd way to make money, you only have  to read the recent NYT obituary for Baltazar Ushca Tenesaca, 80, who kept Andean ice harvesting alive.

Before there were refrigerators there were ice boxes in kitchens. These boxes were cooled by large blocks of ice delivered by the ice man. The now long departed comedian Flip Wilson had a great narrative routine about the Ice Man and the horse who could climb stairs and talk, but only when it wanted to. 

It seems the horse was savvy enough to keep the fact that it could talk away from the owner, because if the owner/wagon driver knew the horse could talk in addition to climbing stairs and delivering the ice, the owner would want him to yell "Ice" as well. The horse wanted none of that added responsibility. This was a smart horse.

You do have to wonder how Mr. Ushca came to the attention of the NYT obituary desk. It is probably safe to safe that Andean ice harvesters were not sitting in a pre-written obit waiting for the subject to pass away. No matter. This subject almost passes the test of someone the late Robert McG. Thomas Jr. would have written about.

Baltazar had been chipping ice since the age of 15, from a glacier on Ecuador's highest peak, Mount Chimbarazo, a dormant volcano (thank goodness) with an elevation of 20,549 feet, the closest point on earth to the sun. Baltazar's father and brothers were in the business as well, but the brothers Juan and Gregorio left the family business a while ago.

The beauty of the online obit is that imbedded in it is a 2012 14 minute documentary link "El Último Hielero" or the "Last Ice Merchant."

Refrigerators and commercial ice have just about ended the business of harvesting ice from the glacier. Apparently though, all ice is not the same, with Chimborazo ice considered to be the testiest and the sweetest, full of vitamins for your bones.

Baltazar unloads two huge straw wrapped bundles and sells them in town, The merchant has been selling Chimborazo ice now for four generations. You do wish someone made the ice available for tasting beyond the town of Guano. Think of the price a 2nd Avenue bar would be able to charge for liquor cooled with Chimborazo ice.  

Watching the video you have to conclude that Baltazar was a very strong hombre. The glacier has been receding over the years, and the last time he took ice from it he had to climb to an elevation of 15,000 feet.

His lungs must have had the air capacity of jet turbines, because he walked up the mountain with his donkeys with no special equipment. He wove straw from the hillside into rope to fashion slings for carrying the ice down the mountain.

When the documentary was made, Baltazar was 67. He quit the business at 75 but didn't quit working. Not having a pension plan or a 401-K, he last worked at ground level herding cattle.

And just to prove that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, Baltazar spent five years herding cattle, but met with death when he was trampled by a bull.

As Pete Hamill once said: life is the leading cause of death.

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