When we were children, there was a small ice cream café, called “The Frosty Freeze” that was located right next to our father’s business. My memory of the details is a bit fuzzy, but in the early days, it was quite small. There wasn’t much inside seating space, and the main product was soft ice cream treats. Later it became a café with burgers and other sandwiches and these days it offers all three meals. In the early days, however, they didn’t serve breakfast and probably didn’t open up until late morning.

There was also an A&W Root Beer stand in our town, with car hops who brought your treats out to the car.

Our father felt some loyalty to the Frosty Freeze in part because of the closeness of its location to his work. I’m sure that friendship with the owner was another factor. There was some genuine small town competition between the two places, but we were not too aware of it as children. What we did know was that our dad loved Root Beer Floats and that he could occasionally be inspired to take the family out for a special treat in the evening. If he took us all out to the A&W for root beer floats, the next time we went out, we’d probably head to the Frosty Freeze for ice cream treats.

When the A&W put in a soft serve ice cream machine, the Frosty Freeze answered by starting to sell root beer. Both of the places sold root beer by the gallon and we had a gallon jug that we would take in to exchange for a full gallon from time to time. On one occasion, our father got his hands on a handful of caps from the A&W restaurant. He’d replace the cap on the jug each time we took it to the Frosty Freeze to get it filled so that they’d think he was buying a gallon from the A&W for each gallon he bought at the Frosty Freeze. The jugs always came home with the correct cap. It was amusing enough that the story was told for a long time in our family.

Going out for treats became ingrained in my sense of what families do. When I met Susan, I learned that her parents had operated a Dairy Queen restaurant in Libby, Montana in the days before Dairy Queen sold complete meals. Ice cream treats was the focus of the restaurant in those days and they didn’t even offer inside seating, just a window where you could order and receive your treats. Her father went to work dressed in white and made trays and trays of Dilly Bars by hand, with the curl in the center of each.

So going out for treats became a part of our family life as we raised our children. I liked to surprise the family. Sometimes when we were headed home from some event or function, I’d choose a route that led to an ice cream store. We used to say that the car knew its way to the treats and sometimes just took the family there. Shortly after we moved to Boise frozen yogurt treats were becoming popular and the chain TCBY came to our town. Our van made plenty of stops there.

The tradition continues, so last night after a home-cooked meal, we got in our son’s car with his family and ended up at a Dairy Queen restaurant a few blocks from their home. I’ve spent enough years of my adult life overweight and struggle to keep my weight in a healthy range, so I know that I have to limit my consumption of ice cream, but I do allow at treat from time to time as long as I am careful to choose small portions.

There are few treats as wonderful as watching our 18-month-old grandson eating an ice cream cone. His mother was remarkably proficient at keeping the mess controlled and she’d give the regular swipe with a napkin to keep him from sharing too much of the ice cream with others. I was impressed at how clean the booth was when we finished.

But you can’t really enjoy an ice cream cone unless you are willing to get a little of it on your face and hands. And when you face is tiny, the ice cream easily goes from the tip of your nose to the bottom of your chin. Sucking is a natural way to get food into yourself when you are a child. Licking is an acquired skill not employed much in the early years of life. So the process was mostly one of sticking the cone into the face – or the face into the cone.

Of course he needed to hold the cone himself. It was far more satisfying than having mom hold it. He likes to be in charge of feeding himself and he is used to having a certain amount of mess on his face whenever he eats. At home there is a high chair and a bib and an easily scrub-able floor to accommodate his eating style.

His vocabulary isn’t too large. He knows “Momma” and “Daddy” and “shoe” and “hat” and can name the parts of his face. One word he has learned is “mine.” It applies not so much to technical ownership as to the things that he wants to have. The ice cream cone quickly became “mine” and he grasped it in both hands to make sure that he retained control of the treat. Grandpa’s laughter probably didn’t help matter much.

The real treasure of going out for a treat, of course, isn’t the ice cream. It is the joy of being together as a family. Sharing something that is fun and delicious together is a process of creating memories. We don’t remain many specific memories of things that happen when we are younger than two or three years old. However, we can remember the mood of our families and the love that is shared.

Grandpa, however, remembers the details as well.

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