July 15, 2018, ..."national ice cream day"...

happy national ice cream day.....

chocolate mint has been my favorite since I was 8 or 9 years old..... whenever Baskin Robbins opened on Lee St., in Des Plaines, Illinois. 

I was "not allowed" to ride my bike down there... about 1/2 mile from our house.  But neither was I forbidden from going.  I have no memory of how I asked for the money, I guess that I always had a little money for myself, from the time I was 8 or 9.... I think that a double scoop, in a waffle cone, was 90 cents...so you get a feel for it being that long ago....

Before I discovered Baskin Robbins I would go in the opposite direction from our house... I do remember being forbidden from crossing two busy streets to get to Convenient.  Convenient was a predecessor to 7-11, a fair-sized convenience store in a little shopping strip on the north west corner of Wolf Road and Algonquin Road.... those two busy streets that I was not supposed to cross -especially with my bicycle. 

How could my Dad have NOT known what I was doing! I put the empty ice cream containers in our trash can! outside our garage.  I wonder if my parents even discussed it at all, or if Dad just chuckled to himself and let it go. Our secret.  Chocolate Malt,... it was about a half pint of chocolate, malty delight! Eaten with a wooden "spoon", and thoroughly enjoyed by little me!


Of course I was extra careful crossing the busy streets, because my parents would have "killed" me if they caught me.... but maybe they knew, and maybe they knew that I was extra super careful crossing those busy streets, so "no one would know".... 

Happy National Ice Cream Day.
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If I could save time in a bottle...

When I was twelve years old I watched a made for television movie called She Lives!. It was a Wednesday.... they showed movies in 90 minute time slots, usually one on Tuesday evening, and another on Wednesday evening.

I made sure to tune in, because I had seen previews the night before.... also because I was familiar with the work of Desi Arnaz, Jr., and Season Hubley, who starred in this particular movie.  As you can surmise from the title, the young woman the movie is about is ill and could be dying. The music for the story? Well, the love theme, played over the ending credits was a song called Time In A Bottle.  And it touched my heart, it spoke to my soul.... naturally, I was a 12 year old girl, still learning about my emotions.

The song was written and performed by a man named Jim Croce.  The date was September 12, 1973.

Just 8 days later Jim Croce was dead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Croce

Our hearts were broken. I remember walking into our kitchen, Friday, September 21, 1973,.... my mother turned off the radio as I entered the room. She tearfully told me that the man who wrote and sang Time In A Bottle had been killed in a plane crash the night before.  She turned the radio back on.... WGN personality Wally Phillips was talking about Jim Croce,.... and then they played Time In A Bottle.  And we cried. 

Naturally that song, Time In A Bottle, holds great meaning for me.  It is my favorite song of my entire life.  I wish I had taken it to heed more than I have ......  

remembering,... this memory still makes me cry....will always make me cry....

If I could save time in a bottle,.... I would save those 8 days in September 1973.....

Time In A Bottle

She Lives!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_Lives!

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Ernie the milkman....

I remember that the Reader's Digest used to have a series about "the most fascinating (or memorable) character", where they would share stories about interesting, fascinating, memorable people.  Every now and then we are blessed to meet such a person.  I knew one. He was my mother's third husband, and he had a good number of interesting, and fascinating stories from a long life, well lived. Not a man of "means' his wealth was in the form of experience.  We asked him many time to write it all down, but, being a very humble soul, he never did so.  That is our loss, my friends.

Anyway, Ernie was a hard-working man all of his life.  For many years he worked three jobs, getting little sleep, but supporting his wife and daughters at what was, at the time, considered a middle-class lifestyle. But that is neither here, nor there.... the point is that Ernie worked many hours a day to provide for his family.  One of his jobs, in the wee hours of the day, when most folks were still asleep, was driving the milk wagon. He was a milkman, though he only ever called it: "driving the milk wagon".  

GENERIC PHOTO, PERSON UNKNOWN

I heard him tell the story many times, of the night (morning) he was so exhausted that he fell asleep at the helm of the milk wagon.  He spoke gently of the horse, and I know that he spoke gently to the horse.  The horse that knew the route by heart, and that horse kept to the route, unaware that the man in the driver seat had been lulled to sleep by the gentle sway and hypnotic creak of the milk wagon.

The horse made all of the usual stops, and apparently more than a few folks waited for the milk wagon, in the early morning hours.  For what was found by Ernie later, was that most of the deliveries had been made, and all the required funds were accounted for.  The horse made the stops, and those kind, gentle souls along the route took the milk they needed and placed the money in the box, and let that poor man sleep.

Thus was one of the adventures of a good, kind, and gentle man in a simpler time.




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