albeit a finite space. Other times I think of our brains like a stomach that swells
and depletes with it's contents. Instead of a visible waste product I think of dreams
as the release mechanism. Of course it is also possible we are just another machine.
I remember so many things. As I age some different things come to the fore, current
obsessions occupy prime space, and various and sundry other things slip away.
When I am in my older years I wonder what I will hold dear to my heart when people speak
with me. More than a few of my very elderly clients have a fond place in their hearts for
ice cream. The first story amused me.
Little Lee is 94 years old and all of 80 pounds. She is very frail these days, and has to
be cooked for as she will often forget to eat or worse, cook something improperly.
It is even more important to sit and speak with her so that she does in fact eat the food.
I asked her if she wanted some cream for her coffee.
"Cream! Oh I remember my grandfather!"
She seemed so delighted in the remembering that I waited quietly for the connection.
"He used to pull up in his sleigh. I could hear the bells from a mile away."
A sleigh. With bells. Until that moment only the province of a carol to me.
"We lived fourteen miles from any place. We never saw much of anyone except each other.
Winters were lonely and Summers were just alot of work. I never thought life could be any different back then. We just lived. And then, once or so a season we had to get provisions.
That meant the sleigh."
"Grandfather would take me with him to "Town." "
I could almost see the quotation marks around the word.
"Grandfather would go into the store and get sacks of flour and sugar and coffee. Sometimes he would get a barrel of peanut butter."
Obviously no allergies in those times. A barrel!
"Then one day he said to me: "Lee you have been a very good little lady. I have a special surprise for you."
"Grandfather got me an ice-cream all for my very own! It was so delicious!
Imagine that! One for my very own!"
wow.
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Then there is Betty.
Betty was a farm girl too, and somewhat more familiar with "Town" living as they did on the outskirts. She has a burning memory of the prairie heat in the summer and the man who sold ices.
"We never had any money. Noone did really but I saw these pretty girls and dressed up Ladies lining up for ices. My mouth would just water."
Finally one summer Betty had enough of that!
"I went over to the vendor and asked him if he would trade 2 eggs for an ice.
And he did! That was the best ice-cream I ever tasted!"
where did she get the eggs?
"Oh I snuck them into my sleeves during my morning chores."
Tonight I am having ice-cream.
And remembering.
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"The ice-cream man would also come around every Sunday and sometimes on Saturday also. He rang a bell to let the people know that he was coming. Mama or Papa would give us each a nickel to get an ice cream cone. The ice cream was mostly vanilla, but sometimes strawberry soda was added so we asked for white or pink ice cream. The ice cream man would carefully measure one scoop of ice cream and put in delicious crisp, sweet, flaky cone. How good that first “lick” tasted! If Mama would buy ice cream for the whole family, she would take a big bowl and ask for as many scoops as was needed. Sometimes she would get 6 scoops for 25 cents, so she usually would buy 50 cents worth."
March 1974
