The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-02-21


 man could live no matter who owned the country. Picture mag azines pay heavy dough for rather poor exposures of ice bergS, gla- ciers, and penguins strutting about among Eskimo dogs and SledS packed with fur. The movie peo- pie, now and then, film features of polar regions and get the audi ences cooled-off after the glamour girl love scenes.
 You don't have to travel south of Cape Stiff to see ice fields now! Without an Eskimo dog or an al- cOhOl stove, you can survey one of the biggest and best ice jams in history right here on Squeak Street, and anywhere, from the PoOtatuck graveyard northward to Little York you can get 8 pretty fair idea of the type of country traversed by Peary, Cook, and others. Drive to the Sandy Hook Bridge and turn north If your eyes don't pop at what you see, there's little hope for you
 The gas shovel has opened the lower end of Squeak street. You can go in your car 8 little way past the sign, Travel At Your Own Risk!" but it's safer to walk past the Honorable Robert c. Mitchellis home because there's no telling when that old Housa- tonic River will take a notion to start moving ice around again and you might not want to be slowed up by having to turn your car around.
 A trip upriver right now will prove to you that our pioneers who built beside the HOusat0nic had courage, or were just plain dumb. Ice humps up into such fantastic shapes that hired man with 2 tummy full of felt-bOot cider would sign the pledge prom to, once he had seen the havoc Nature has created in that Peace full Valley Cottonwood trees have been snapped off like matchwood, fencepOsts have vanished
 As far as the eye can see, deS- olation and horror unfoldS in a white, ghostly sheet. Edgewise, endwise, and sidewise, those ice. cakes have created a pattern of breast works that make you run for the hills and thank your lucky stars that you live on high ground. A million tons of ice is going to waste right there within easy hauling distance of cities where automatic refrigeratorS are considered a necessity
 An ice cream manufacturer could dress 8 couple of pretty girls in furs and get some photos down there that would unload production of frozen daintieS fast CT than a modern plant could turn it out. A fur shop could plant few stuffed polar bears there and have our best trappers pose with a winter catch and win prize for a top-flight adver- tisement. The State Publicity Commission, if it still operates, could get ice carnival pics there that would bring folks south from Quebec and Montreal And there's a swell chance for some trick photography showing motor cars overcoming winter weather.
 Pootatuck is noteworthy for thrift. We wonder why some thing hasn't been done to assure an income from this natural phe- nomenon? Wouldn't it be poSsi- ble to close the road and charge admission? Wouldn't city people pay real money to see this strange manifestation of the power of ice and hydraulics? At Niagara Falls they publicize an ice gorge only a little larger than our Pootatuck pile-up
 Perhaps the federal government should be contacted regarding this misfortune? We might start a w. F. A. project chopping ice and making things shipshape for the spring floods. Who knows, maybe beneath the ice sheet are number of dead bodies? Fish, tur- ties, and cells that have been caught and frosted should be freed and returned to the river. And South Britain should certainly in- sist on Q commemorative postage stamp depicting the Great Poo tatuck Ice Jam. Maybe we'd best rename Squeak Street and call 1t Arctic Boulevard? ..F WrRTaC AnVTcE Tn C0-EnS