Heaps of Love

Last summer, an ice cream parlor and candy store opened in downtown Neenah. They sell the tasty, hard-packed ice cream that's not available at fast-food-style soft-serve outlets, and they also carry an infinite variety of old-fashioned candies--the kinds you remember from when you were a kid, no matter how old you are. For me, the hot dog gum and candy cigarettes are favorites; yours would no doubt be different but equally nostalgic. (Say what you will about candy cigarettes being nostalgic for me.)

We occasionally make a bike trip to this ice cream parlor for a treat. The last time we did, it was a sweltering Saturday afternoon--so sweltering, in fact, that we ate our ice cream inside rather than on the bench out front. (To me, there's nothing better than a drippy ice cream cone eaten in the sun.)

Each of us painstakingly selected our flavor, some of us more painstakingly than others. For our son, it's almost invariably this dark, dark Zanzibar chocolate, a variety too sophisticated for his five-year-old taste, but one he likes nonetheless. Our daughter chose some pink-and-blue concoction, and my beloved went for something kind of fruity...fresh strawberries or raspberries, I think.

I, on the other hand, picked "Heaps of Love," a base of vanilla ice cream bursting with basically everything the makers could cram in...brownies, cookie dough, candied pecans, chocolate chunks. It was the "indecisive" flavor, but it was decidedly good.

We sat down at the only kiddie table in the place. It had a tiny umbrella and two miniscule chairs. Daddy and I sat on the floor.

It's our tradition to trade licks once we have cones in hand, which we proceeded to do. Our boy looked at mine before licking it and said, "What's yours, Mama?"

"It's called 'Heaps of Love,'" I told him. "Try it."

He did. Then he smiled and said, "It tastes like love."

And he was right.