Closed Forever

When my parents first moved to the beach town on the big lake, there wasn’t a lot of tourist infrastructure. The beach was there but it tended to be a place for day trips. We lived in a moderately sized city that was only about an hour away so it was something you could easily do in day. There were a few motels – all of them locally operated so no chains in site.

On the main road out of town was an ice cream place. I believe at the time, they still made the ice cream on the premises so the building wasn’t much to look at. All brick with a couple of loading docks and a small area in front where they served the good stuff. Most people would pick up ice cream on the way out of town but they did have a small seating area inside.

For some reason, there was always a coffee pot going and a whole bunch of mugs on the wall. Coffee was free and there was a water fountain where you could get water to go with the ice cream if you so desired. Mom was never into ice cream so she’d always skip ahead of us and get napkins and spoons and water and a coffee for her and wait until we got through the line with our ice cream.

It became a family thing. When we came for a visit, we all had to go out at least once to get ice cream. And this was the good stuff. There was a board full of flavors. The best was a recent additional called Peppermint Patty which was dark chocolate ice cream with pieces of mint patties swirled in. Good stuff. The French Silk was another good option. Since we were usually only there for a few days (maybe a week), you had to get a double with different scoops just so you could try as many flavors as possible.

Like a lot of beach tourist things, it was only open in the summer so it wasn’t something we could do on those times we did Thanksgiving or Christmas with the parents.

As time passed, things changed. Most of the homes near the lake became rental properties so people could stay for longer periods of time. And several chain hotels sprouted along the main road out of town. All of that did make it easier for us to gather as a family because there were more options. As the parents became more frail, they made fewer trips with us. Dad would tag along from time to time since he was into the ice cream but Mom would stay behind more often than not.

The company got into trouble and another place bailed them out by agreeing to make the ice cream and it was never the same.

The pandemic hurt a lot. They shut down the indoor seating area and it never reopened. They did add more outdoor seating areas but the ambience wasn’t the same. The number of flavors was reduced.

The last couple of visits were still nice but not the same. It didn’t help that our last visits were more to sort out the parents estate and things so it was just a reminder of what would never be again.

And they just announced that this year will be there last year. When the season ends in October, the doors will be shut and will not reopen. It is sad although we’ve not been up there in several years so it isn’t like it is a place we will miss every day. It is more the link to the past and what it represents. Things that will now be just memories.

One of the siblings tossed out the idea of going up for one last visit but I don’t think it was serious. Chances are, we’d end up on some cold, rainy October day trying to stay dry while eating certain flavors for the last time. No, I think I’d rather just remember how it was and not how it ended.