Random Musings

Ice Cream

I was sitting at the computer this afternoon, working on a story, and eating some Mayfield strawberry ice cream. I like that brand because it freezes extremely hard, and I don't have to race to eat it to keep it from getting all mushy. I eat very slowly.

As I worked on the story and the bowl of ice cream before me, the memory came to me of eating ice cream at my grandmother's house when I was a kid. She didn't eat ice cream, but she always had some in her freezer. When I asked her once why she didn't eat it, she told me, "I like ice cream, but it certainly doesn't like me". I thought that was so funny. I didn't realize then that she was using personification to tell me that ice cream gave her bad gas.

Being at the place I am in life right now, I can sympathize with that sentiment. I like ice cream, too, but it doesn't always like me. I am lactose-intolerant to the max, and will be probably be paying dearly for this indulgence later on. The only difference in Big Mom and me is that I don't care about what or who doesn't like me. I get what I want or need out of the situation, deal with the consequences and repercussions if there are to be any, and I move on.

Big Mom usually kept neopolitan (chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry) ice cream in her fridge for her grandkids. She wanted us to have a choice of flavors. Since she and my step-grandfather didn't eat it, it stayed in there for a while. When we came over, and she gave us some, it always tasted of freezer. It wasn't very good, but you ate it anyway because it was ice cream and because Big Mom gave it to you.

She also always had cones, which she would purchase strictly for us kids. Most of the time, they would be stale and kind of soft, but we ate them, too. We didn't get cones at home. We were lucky if we got ice cream. That was a delicacy, a non-essential to our blue-collar, trying-to-make-ends-meet parents. Cones were completely out.

We ate Big Mom's freezer/frost flavored ice cream and the spongy cones because they were there, and we never complained. It wouldn't have been polite to do so, and it really wasn't that big a deal at the time. Ice cream was ice cream, and on a cone, it was even better.

Now, decades later, sitting in front of this computer, I realize that what made it so memorable for me was that Big Mom gave it to me.

I can still taste its sweetness and hers.