Ice Cream and Men

As a little girl, before 3rd grade, I have vivid memories of summer evenings walking to the neighborhood Friendly’s for an ice cream cone. We’d get our cones from the walk-up window and then make our way back home, licking our ice cream. An important part of the walk was getting up on the stone wall near a church. My brother and I would hand off our cones to our dad to climb onto the wall.

We could never get the cones back once on the wall. My dad would be busy “cleaning them”. He would lick all the drippings along the side of the cone, half of the ice cream on top and possibly even nibble the cone. All in the name of cleaning up.

“MOM!!” we would both yell. “Get our cones back!”

She would order him to return the cones. While handing them back he would sheepishly say the same thing, “I was just cleaning them up.”

In fourth grade we had a real treat. We were going to an island as a family and our beloved Aunt and Uncle from Georgia joined us. The island had an ice cream parlor. Our uncle offered to share a sundae with my little brother. Talk about a set up. This grown man was going to eat all of the ice cream. Steal from a kindergartner.

Uncle would carefully collect ice cream, hot fudge and whip cream on his spoon. He talked about what a great looking spoonful he had. He delayed putting it in his mouth.

My brother scooped it right off of Uncle’s spoon and gobbled it. My Uncle made another “perfect” spoon. My brother did it again. Here was a man who was willing to let a kid take his ice cream.

Today, I married a man who eats ice cream on the sly. The kids and I will have carefully kept track of the ice cream, making sure the box lasts the entire week. They will do a good job eating their dinner and run to the freezer, pull out the ice cream, only to find that the box has barely enough ice cream in it to fill a thimble.

So begins their lesson you cannot trust daddies with ice cream.

Luckily for them, Aunt and Uncle from Georgia will join our family for this year's summer vacation on a different island. Thirty-one years after sharing a sundae with my brother. I’m already scouting out ice cream parlors.

This post was submitted to Scribbit's March Write-Away contest. The topic was childhood memories. For more about life in Alaska, check her out.