Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Smiles on a Summer Night

The July just past was the fourth-hottest July on record in this area, and the hottest since 1936, and August is the same, and this is God's way of telling the people of Missouri to enjoy the hot darkness and slurp up icy things before bedtime. There's something wonderful about neon lights in August advertising icy stuff. The SnoBiz stand, a tiny six feet wide and 12 feet long, is shuttered all winter behind the grocery store and so nondescript I don't even see it, but it comes alive with fun lights and people on summer nights, and finally -- because life is too short to be such a hardass as to lecture myself, "I don't need sweet icy stuff on an August night" -- stopped in about 10 p.m. when it was still 85 degrees, and bought a lemon-meringue ice (a staff recommendation) just so I could take a photo.

It was incredibly tasty for a cup of shaved ice and placated my inner seven-year old who vowed that after she got her own purse and money and could stay up past 8:30 she wouldn't ever pass up an ice cream store, ice-cream truck, ice-cream sandwich, slurpee, or sno-cone. (Wasn't any frozen yogurt in those days. In Harvard Square, in Cambridge, Mass., is a plaque honoring the place that the first frozen yogurt was made and sold in 1971.)

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