ICE CREAM STORIES

I wrote this post over a week ago. It has just been sitting in my drafts waiting for me to do something with it. I’m posting it now for a number of reasons. One reason is that it is something new to read while I finish compiling some thoughts from the weekend. Not too long ago, Atlas Obscura was offering a four part writing workshop on telling stories through ice cream. They have been advertising in the daily newsletter that I get in my email and the first add asked “Can you tell stories with ice cream?” I did not sign up for the workshop. I am sure I could have benefitted from it but I already knew without a doubt that of course you can tell stories with ice cream. My whole life is linked to that creamy sweet wonderful dessert. It is genetically encoded in my DNA to love ice cream. It is also genetically encoded into my DNA for my gut to not love it so much, but I don’t care. I will eat the ice cream and suffer the consequences later. I’m talking about ice cream. Not custard. Midwest is all about custard, which is good, but it is not ice cream. Look. It’s just better to not get me started, but I will say that Michael was almost forty years old before ever eating at a Braum’s and that is a goddamn travesty.

“You mean I can get any flavor ice cream as a shake instead of a drink with my hamburger meal?!?!”

Mom told me a story once about my Pepaw, her dad. She said that Pepaw would make ice cream every evening. It always contained whatever fruit was in season and growing around them, but his favorite was peach. She told me about how they would all eat a bowl of ice cream after dinner. Then they might go to the movies or church or some family activity. When they got back, Pepaw would eat another bowl of ice cream. She said “Your Pepaw loved his ice cream.” Pepaw rarely made the drive from Mississippi to Oklahoma to visit. We most always went there, but I vividly remember the times that he did come and stay. One visit in particular was right around my high school graduation. I still had school activities every day, but when I would get home, my Pepaw would say “Let’s go get ice cream.” I would then drive us in my 1980 Chevy Cavalier into Owasso for ice cream. That car was the car that replaced my first hunk of junk and it was so nice, except the air conditioning didn’t work. Still it seemed like quite the upgrade from what I had been driving. At least this car had whole, working seatbelts. Pepaw was the only person I would allow to smoke in my car. The truth is, I would never have denied him anything. I got so little time with my Pepaw and of that little time I did get, only a bit of that was alone time. During that visit, it was just the two of us driving into town, sitting at a plastic table outside Braum’s and eating ice cream. Our conversations varied, but he told me his regrets. He told me that he loved me and that he was very proud of me. This meant more to me than the ice cream because I didn’t think Pepaw really knew me. We only ever saw each other once or twice a year.

Pepaw could be the first chapter of my ice cream stories, with several chapters to follow that. Ice cream is a link to every man in my life. That boy I had a I huge crush on my freshman year of college and how the two of us would always make the ice cream run for whoever was hanging out in the dorm lobby . Chris and how he always used “let’s go get ice cream” to trick me into going to Best Buy. Michael seeing me mad, cranky or sad saying “Do we need ice cream?” and then driving me to my favorite ice cream place. Dad and vanilla ice cream. I could go on and on because there are many ice scream stories to be told.

While I was wrapped up in a yoga silk the other night, I started thinking about physical pain and how that pain gets stored in our bodies. The facia is that membrane that surrounds the muscles. Think of it as cellophane. Each moment of pain twists, wrinkles and knots that facia. Some knots are bigger than others and those are the ones we tend to remember most clearly. I can still vividly recall the pain of getting my tonsils removed at age seven and the pain from doctors attempting to reset my broken right arm when I was ten or eleven. Strangely enough I do not remember the pain of breaking my other arm two years earlier. I guess breaking both bones in two doesn’t hurt as much as cracking a bone? Once, while riding Katrina’s bicycle, I turned a corner while going too fast and I laid the bicycle down, sliding the right side of my body down the road. The memory of that moment is more vivid due to my calm reaction as I stood up. The neighbor had watched the whole thing and asked me if I was okay. I leaned over, picked the bike up and shrugged while saying “I’m fine.” It wasn’t until I had the bike parked safely and was inside the house that I allowed that pain to flood over me and cry. All of those moments are stored in giant knots of facia in my body. It only takes a nudge to bring the memory of that pain to the surface.

I have zero memories of the pain of brain freeze from eating ice cream. Oh, I know I have had it happen to me as a child and even as an adult, but the memory of that pain is not held someplace in my body for later recall. I suppose that is why I repeat the action that causes this pain over and over again. It’s why we all do. The reason that brain freeze pain doesn’t stick itself into the fascia is because the action comes with sweetness and joy. There is usually some giggling involved. Brain freeze is a physical pain of joy and that joy tends to overrun the pain. It’s like love. We love even though we know at some point we are going to end up broken hearted because the sweetness and joy outweighs the pain aspect of loving.

THE BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE WEEKEND

Foggi Ice Cream

6 Likes, 0 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Foggi Ice Cream"

I sat at the dining room table while eating my breakfast of cottage cheese with chia seeds, walnuts and honey and flipping though unread emails. I don’t read emails on the weekend or I don’t clean out my inboxes on weekends is really how I should but that since a majority of my inboxes are filled with junk. My eyes flashed by one subject line that read “Happy National Ice Cream Day!”. I paused and looked at the sent date. It had been sent out the day before. I missed National Ice Cream Day. Sunday came and went without one lick of ice cream.

My Pepaw would be so disappointed.

Ice cream is not a thing here. It’s kind of a thing, but it is more of a novelty, fancy thing. Ice cream places around here have flavors that include goat cheese and lavender. Those places are good; don’t get me wrong. I had an apricot goat cheese and honey ice cream cone just last week that was delicious. We went to a new place on Saturday where they put all of the ice cream ingredients into a metal mixing bowl and pipped in liquid nitrogen while the mixer swished everything around. Really neat and fun. It was tasty, but it wasn’t ice cream. There’s not a Braum’s up here or an equivalent to Braum’s. Custard. That’s the thing up here. People stand in line for cups of frozen custard with mix-ins like peanut butter cups or M&Ms and Reece’s Pieces. This is also good. It’s just that sometimes I just want ice cream. I want to peruse the ice cream counter, inspecting all the different flavors before settling on butter pecan praline.

This ice cream preference is genetically encoded into my DNA.

My mother tells a story about how when she was a kid, they made homemade ice cream every night in the summer time. They would put fresh fruit in it, what ever happened to be in season. Peaches. Blackberries. She said that my Pepaw would eat a huge bowl of it. Then they’d all go to the movies and he’d have another bowl when they got home. I can’t really think about this story without seeing a porch with my Pepaw seated in a lawn chair, leaning over a hand crank ice cream maker while a young version of my mother and Uncle Russel crowded around. I can’t hear or read these words without hearing that southern drawl that only comes out in my mother when she is around her brother. I can feel the hot steamy summer of southern Mississippi and hear the buzz of the cicadas. I can imagine Pepaw running a handkerchief across his brow as he passed his hand cranking duties over to one of the kids. They would all take a turn.

Pepaw came to stay with us when I graduated high school. I still had community college classes, but I would be home around three every afternoon. I’d pull my car into the drive and Pepaw would be sitting in a chair under the camper awning. He always stayed in a camper. I remember how he’d push himself up to standing as I pulled into the drive. He’d holler “Don’t get out! Let’s go get some ice cream.” and he’d come get in on the passenger side. I’d drive us to Tasty Freeze or Braum’s with him smoking out my car window all the way. He’s the only person I ever let smoke in my vehicles. He’d buy me a scoop of ice cream and then we’d head back to the house, him telling me stories and regrets all along the way. As I remember this now, I think about how rare it was to have Pepaw all to myself, just the two of us. We had family visits maybe once a year and that mostly included all of us, my brother and his family, my sister and her family. Usually it was all of us caravanning our way to Mississippi. But this time? This time it was just him and me and one of the Pennies. Pepaw was partial to Jack Russel terrier mixes that all looked identical to the one before and all ended up with name of Penny.

It’s funny some times, the things that trigger certain memories.