When I was child there were ice cream parlors, Dari Queens and Howard Johnsons. (Not like now. Where every fast food place has self serve. Yuck.)

My dad would often travel to see his brother in the Berkshires. He would go out Route 22 in New York to a restaurant he went to all the time. He had worked with the man. Tudge’s Resturant. My dad would stop at Tudge’s before we went to see his brother who worked at The Berkshire School For Boys in Sheffield, Massachusetts.

Chocolate milkshakes were my favorites. (Not these airy things with no taste but an after taste!) And they had great fried clams,cokes and sugar cubes! (One of the first places as a child I decided to show the waitress by putting my new Buster Brown shoes…on the table!)

BUT…I think my favorite ice cream treat times was my grandfather taking me to Howard Johnsons for one amazing peppermint ice cream cone. (Want a visual. Take a look at the Norman Rockwell picture of the police officer and the little boy sitting at the diner counter.) He would drive me in his big Chrysler. We would get near Stockbridge, Massachusetts and he would park the car and take me in. I probably had a toasted cheese sandwich or a hot dog, but all I remember was the sound of those green enamel Hobart milkshake machines with the big silver cups. Even as I ate soup or sandwiches, the roar of that machine caused me to speed up my eating. So excited!

Ice cream time. Peppermint chip ice cream. Waffle cone and all. I would lick the edges before the drips, a napkin around the cone. Once I got the ice cream flush to the top of the cone, I would pick the cone up high in the air , bite the bottom off and eat the ice cream that had collected in the bottom of the cone.

Wow!

A trip to the washroom and an alcohol towelette and I was ready to finish the ride to see my grandmother.