Baseball and Ice Cream (404 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.5 on 17 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Grownasskid (View user info) at 2007-03-12 20:37:17 EDT
When I was still in grade school, Saturdays in the summer were my least favorite days. Oh sure, I loved watching Spiderman and The Tick in my underwear as much as the next nine year old, but Saturday in the summer meant that at some point in the day I would have a baseball game for the local R.E.C league, and I hated to play baseball. The other kids would sprint out to their positions as the coach called out where they were going to be playing that inning. I would usually stand in the back and hope that I would get to sit out. I couldn't do anything that is required of a competent baseball player; I was afraid of the ball, so I couldn't hit, I was a pudgy kid, so I couldn't run the bases with any kind of efficiency, and I was usually too busy wearing my glove as a hat and picking dandelions in right field to ever catch the ball, let alone throw it back to the infield. Yes, I truly was an awful baseball player, and I hated that I was forced to go to the games every Saturday.
My parents would ask me every spring if I liked playing baseball, and I would always tell them that I didn't. My parents would ask me every spring if I wanted them to sign me up for summer baseball, and I would always say yes. "Why," they would ask, "do you want us to sign you up if you don't like playing?" I never told them why, but it was because the baseball field was across the street from Buckman's Ice Cream Shop. And I loved Buckman's Ice Cream Shop.
After seven innings of bad pitching, overzealous parents cheering for their kids, and unnecessary spitting, I would take the 5 dollars my parents would give me and I would run across Carter Park to the corner of Long Pond and Ridge. From there, I could see the strip mall that held my Babylon. Buckman's was located in between a newsstand and a frame shop. Even from across the street, I could see its big red letters written in faux cursive over the glass doors. It called out to me, promising to help me forget about called third strikes and ground balls through the legs. If not for the frenzy of traffic that always lined Ridge road, I would have sprinted across the four lanes to get there. Instead, I would wait at the corner for the walk sign. It always took forever to show up.
The clicking of my cleats on asphalt was like a promissory song from the heavens; "don't worry, you're almost there". I would cross the perilous road, and then I would walk into the parking lot, weaving my way between cars, keeping my eyes on the bright red lettering. I would pull the glass doors open, and the frosty conditioned air would cool my warm face and wipe away all thoughts of baseball. The muffled tap of my cleats on carpet meant that I was there; I had reached my land of milk and honey once more.
Buckman's is larger than it looks from outside. It has several booths along the back wall, and a counter with long stools in the middle of it. To the right of the doors, there is a pastry counter with a display case showing half moon cookies, fruit pies, muffins, doughnuts, and all other kinds of sweets (for some strange reason, they never had bread; this always seemed odd to me, even at nine). The bakery counter was always attended by a high school girl, never a boy, and she always looked as if working at Buckman's was the worst decision she ever made, and that she might burn the place down if she could get away with it. The pastry girl would always be looking at her nails when I would walk in.
The walls of the place were lined with framed photos that told the story of the rise and fall of my town. The older, grainier photos would show pictures of newly built factories, families smiling in front of newly built houses, men driving trucks, and women in sun dresses kissing their hard working husbands. The color photos revealed those same factories with new additions and bigger buildings, the housewives and husbands in front of new, bigger houses, and people packed into diners, laughing and smiling. The digital pictures showed those factories, alive and dynamic only two picture frames ago, closed down and abandoned. Pictures of houses gave way to new, low cost apartment complexes. The last thing on the wall was a framed newspaper article about Buckman's 70 year anniversary, a testament to a simple ice cream shop's observation of life in that town.
These things were all in the shop, but what was to the right of the door made Buckman's a desert oasis to a sweaty nine-year old boy: the ice cream counter. It was a massive display case; it wrapped along two corners of the shop. Inside this mammoth cooler was every single ice cream known to mankind, or so it seemed to me. At the first end, there were the basic flavors like vanilla and chocolate and strawberry. I would usually shoot past these pedestrian flavors; every shop has those chump flavors and they all taste the same. Next in the case was the "healthy" ice cream. This part held things like sorbet, frozen yogurt, and Italian ices of all kinds. I knew these treats were in no way healthy, but I would rocket past them anyway. I was in an ice cream shop, I wanted some ice cream.
It was the next part of the display that was the real triumph of the place. This part held the "special" flavors. This section of the case had combinations of flavors and toppings that had never even been considered. The ice cream in this part of the shop ran the rainbow in colors; there were ice creams as black as road tar and there were creations so white that they almost looked transparent on your cone. Here, flavors like "Choco-splosion", "Nutz-N-Stuff", and "Gorilla Vanilla" were all the rage. I would linger here in this section of the freezer, my face pressed against the smudged glass in a distorted mask of joy. I would imagine that someone was in the back of the store with all sorts of fruits, nuts, and sweets, and his job was to mix things until he invented the next new ice cream concoction. It was a job I wanted, and badly.
Mr. Buckman would walk over to me and ask what I wanted. Usually, I would get "Smurf Feet"; it was a bright, chemical blue substance and it tasted like chocolate cotton candy. Mr. Buckman would scoop the blue gunk into my waffle cone in big sloppy doses and hand it to me across the counter. I would give him my five dollar bill, and watch him punch the type writer keys of his old cash register. He would reach into his machine, which was older than the girl working the bakery counter, and hand me my change with a smile. He would always remind me to take extra napkins, but I would never listen. At that point, I was miles away, lost in a world where I was paid in ice cream to mix things into a big pot to make flavors. On the door, there was a picture of a toddler holding an empty cone in his hands and looking at a big glob of ice cream at his feet. I would look at this picture and make a note to myself not to do that. I would walk back through the glass doors, feel the sun on my face and the ice cream in my hands, and think to myself that maybe baseball wasn't so bad. I couldn't wait for next week.
I recently went back to Buckman's ice cream. I stopped going there once a week once I started playing football in the summer at a different park in town. I missed the trips across ridge road. I missed the click of my cleats on carpet. I missed the surly teen girl, the visual time line, and the wild array of exotic flavors that Mr. Buckman would give you for a few dollars. Over time, the desire passed, and I completely forgot about Buckman's until a recent trip back home when a spicy lunch sent me on the prowl for ice cream, which is a hard thing to find during winter in upstate New York. I began to drive around my town and found that I didn't even know what places were open any more; the town had changed a lot since I'd been gone. I turned mindlessly on to Ridge road, and caught my breath when I saw the same red cursive over glass doors. I pulled into the parking lot and walked toward the glass doors. The newsstand and the frame shop that once flanked Buckman's were gone, replaced by a KFC and a "For Sale" sign. As I approached the door, memories came flooding back, and I was almost afraid to go into the shop, thinking that it must have changed like the rest of my town. I held my breath and went into the shop. Same bakery counter, same grouchy teen age girl, same pictures, same shop. I walked through the velvet bank ropes and asked the clerk at the old register for a waffle cone of "Smurf Feet". As the clerk scooped out the chemical blue ice cream, I couldn't help but wonder if they were hiring.
User Reviews
Submitted by Grownasskid (user info) at 2007-03-13 15:14:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I've got family in Rochester
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2007-03-13 12:35:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
auto +2 for my birthday
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2007-03-13 08:17:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Are you, by chance, speaking of Rochester, NY?
Your future ratings depend on it.
Asswipe.
Submitted by Hilarity_Ensues (user info) at 2007-03-13 07:59:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by rorrim (user info) at 2007-03-13 07:40:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by forthewin (user info) at 2007-03-13 01:34:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by GnarlsBarkley (user info) at 2007-03-13 01:31:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
too bad you put this up durring bandwagon. I woulda plus twoed, had it had a camwhore.
______________
Are you serious?
Are you drunk?
Submitted by GnarlsBarkley (user info) at 2007-03-13 01:31:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
too bad you put this up durring bandwagon. I woulda plus twoed, had it had a camwhore.
Submitted by FistSoup (user info) at 2007-03-13 01:03:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Good story.
I want Smurf Feet ice cream.
How do cleats click on carpets?
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2007-03-13 00:41:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2007-03-13 00:35:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
fantastic.
Submitted by Life101 (user info) at 2007-03-13 00:11:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i had a post about ice cream it bombed
Submitted by forthewin (user info) at 2007-03-12 23:35:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great post.
Very great.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2007-03-12 22:24:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Can't go wrong with either.
Ah, better days...
Submitted by JustAnotherStudent (user info) at 2007-03-12 22:13:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great, now I want some fucking ice cream.
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2007-03-12 21:41:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by rillins (user info) at 2007-03-12 21:29:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked it, and I like ice cream. :P
Submitted by Grownasskid (user info) at 2007-03-12 20:37:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
wtf I'm not reading all that