There are things about my memories that I don’t understand.

In recent days I have been researching the history of two Commercial Avenue buildings, the former Carnegie Public Library building at Fourth and Commercial and the former Masonic Lodge building at Third and Commercial.

What I remember differs from what I have learned in my research.

For example, I remember both a museum room and the Christian Science Reading Room located in the basement of the library. When visiting the library, I liked to go downstairs and look at the museum collection. I never visited the reading room but until recently I assumed it was there when I was a youngster. I remember a sign in the library entrance that directed visitors to the reading room

Now I wonder if the sign was really there for the reading room apparently closed a decade or more before my birth. Until I checked, I assumed the reading room closed about the time ownership of the Christian Science church building at Fifth and Kansas transferred to Our Redeemer Lutheran Church.

I may have read the sign directing visitors to the reading room for it may have remained in the library after the room closed.

Not sure when I first read the Christian Science Monitor daily newspaper but for many years this newspaper received a complimentary copy each day.

The public library may also have had a complimentary subscription which I read.

The Masonic bodies acquired the building next door to the newspaper office in 1959, did extensive remodelling and held a dedication service in the spring of 1962. That all was certainly within a time frame I should remember but I can not picture what the front of the building looked like before it was acquired by the Masons.

West Fourth Street is another story for I have lots of memories of that street.

This week the Ideal Market’s 75th anniversary is being celebrated. For most of those 75 years, the store has been located at Fourth and National. However, I have a detailed memory of what that street looked like before the grocery store.

My favorite ice cream store, the Polar Corner, was located on West Fourth Street. The hard packed ice cream was manufactured in the building. They didn’t always have them but some days they had made in Superior fudge bars. The bars were larger than the fudgesicles that were made elsewhere and shipped in. And they were made with real ice cream. While a college student enrolled in a dairy science class, I learned the fudge bars were probably made with ice cream that didn’t pass the quality test. The chocolate used to flavor fudge bar would cover other taste imperfections. That explains why sometimes a fudge bar had nuts.

Both ice and ice cream were manufactured in the building and in the days before home freezers people could rent cold storage lockers there.

I remember going to the plant with my father to buy blocks of ice. He would tell the attendant how many pounds of ice he wanted and a block to his specifications would be cut from a larger block.

My parents had a mechanical refrigerator but it was small by today’s standards and ice was purchased for making ice cream and cooling or keeping cool food that didn’t fit in the refrigerator. The solid ice melted slower than the cubes we now buy in sacks.

The Polar Corner sometimes employed car hops. It was their job to meet the customers at the curb, take orders and deliver the order to the customer’s car. At some drive-ins the car hops wore roller skates but that wasn’t possible at the Polar Corner for the car hops had to navigate curbs.

East of the combination ice cream, ice and locker business was the Farmers Union Cream Station and the Yohn Dairy. The dairy made the best cottage cheese and milk in glass bottles was delivered throughout Superior.

Eggs were purchased at the northwest corner of the Ideal Market. I remember stopping there with friends while en route to school, ringing a bell and having someone come out and take the filled 30 dozen egg cases from my friends’ car.

My mother sold both eggs and cream at the Farmers Union Cream Station. When she stopped in front of the cream station an attendant met her car and carried the eggs and cream inside.

After mother finished her shopping, we would circle back past the cream station. I was honored to be allowed to go inside get the check for the eggs and cream and carry the wooden egg case and empty cream can back to the family automobile.

Across the alley to the east was a chicken hatchery, the J.W. Boyd law office, Marshall Barber Shop and an electric and refrigeration shop.

I was with my parents at the Polar Corner the night of the Hebron tornado. The Superior Fire Hall was located where the city utility office is now. Superior didn’t have a civil defense warning system like we now have. Instead the firemen took their only truck and cruised the town with siren blowing.

Our home didn’t have a storm shelter so we took shelter in the then under construction Courtland Canal tube under Highway 14.

When I awoke at home the next morning, I looked out the bedroom window and saw my father digging the hole in which he built a storm cave. I also found the sticky remains of my partially eaten ice cream cone in the back seat of the family automobile. The thought of a tornado frightened me so much, I forgot to finish the cone.

While in the irrigation tube, we were soon joined by a number of folks from Superior. It was illuminated with burning flare pots someone carried down from the top side.

As we waited out the storm, rain began to pour down and the adults feared the canal might fill with water.

It was quite a trick to climb out of the canal in the rain. The banks had turned to a slick mud--if we hadn’t been so scared, it might have been fun to go mud sliding.

Now with vegetation growing above the water level, it wouldn’t be so hard to get out, but now you can count on there being water in the tube. After the canal was finished, I liked to go ice skating on the water frozen in the tube. It wasn’t deep, so there was no fear of falling in and drowning and as it was protected from the wind the ice froze smooth. But some years tumble weeds froze in the ice and prevented skating. I should probably qualify my use of skating. Since I didn’t own a pair of ice skates, I went sliding with slick shoes. Wouldn’t consider doing that today.