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My two favorite words:  Hershey’s, and Ice Cream.

(….Isn’t that three words? …. Just go with it…)

We have a little ice cream shop in the tiny hamlet of Beallsville, Maryland.  It sits caddy-corner to our firehouse, at the cross roads of Beallsville Road and Rt. 28.

The building itself has seen many incarnations.  It used to be a restaurant named “Staub’s,” known for it’s amazing hush puppies.  It’s been many other things too.  But right now it is used by a local family, The Harney Family, Gary, Paul, and Gibbie, for a variety of purposes, the greatest and most noble of which is Ice Cream.

They also have a locksmith, security business, gift shop, and other things.

But did I mention the Ice Cream?

I can walk away from most things, but I can’t seem to drive past The Twisted Cone.  And if I did, the Varmint and Critter in the back seat would make their objections known most audibly… And possibly painfully.

My first mistake was starting a tradition during the last school year where every Friday I would drive my Brats up for Ice Cream after school.

It wasn’t long before we were doing frequent mid-week stops.

And then of course we had to make stops after sporting events: Track, Softball, Thumb Wars, Rock Paper Scissor Games, those kinds of things.

At some point someone dared us to try every flavor.  I think it was one of the owners.

We don’t back down from dares.

All I know is that it’s one of our “Happy Places”.  A place my kids will remember when they are older.

You know, when I’m dead, after my arteries have fully occluded.

But I will have died happy, that’s for darn sure!

Since it’s Spring Break, I let Critter and Varmint choose their breakfast Menu.  We had:

Broccoli Frittata

Egg in a Nest (fried egg in toast)

Home-made Hashed Browns

Golden Graham Cereal

and Selgatang

It was eclectic, if not delicious.

“Mom? Why don’t you make breakfast like this everyday?”

Uhhhhh……

“Hmmmm….I have no idea, Kids.”

My son is destined to be on the Food Network one day.  Or, if there is a bartending channel by then, he’ll be on that.

He loves to invent drinks.  At this point, he’s relegated to juice, Gatorade, pop and other under-age liquids, but I have no doubt to what is coming in future decades.

He wanted me to share with you one of his newest creations:  “Selgatang”

He actually went to the computer, On His Own, and created the instructions, so I would be able to make it ‘just right’.  He’s a perfectionist, you see.

And then you end up with this:

Here is the soon-to-be-famous Selgatang with its creator, “Critter”:

Who loves the camera, and loves his fans:

And here he is blowing the camera (and you) a kiss.  Wow.

What a Ham.

We needed to go!  There was no flexibility on the timing of our leaving.

My Captain gave us all the ten minute warning.  He also suggested that anyone who had to ‘go’, needed to do so now.

No one got up or stopped what they were doing.  He might have had an absent minded nod or two come his way, but otherwise there wasn’t much motivation going on.

Two minutes before we absolutely had to go, there was a mad scramble for socks and shoes.  I began barking at the kids that this was exactly why we had a ten minute warning policy!

One minute before we had to go, Varmint goes to the bathroom!  Argh!

“Honey! Why didn’t you go earlier?!”

“Because I didn’t need to then, Mom!”

My Captain is looking at his watch and his brow is starting to furrow. I hate it when it does that.

Critter is wandering aimlessly around in the yard, sort of – kind of in the direction of the car.

It’s one minute past the time we absolutely needed to go.  Varmint gets out of the bathroom, apologizing profusely.  My Captain nods and pushes her out the door, and holds it open for me.

Only to find that I wasn’t there.

I had to go to the bathroom.

I didn’t see it, but I can just imagine he looked up at the ceiling and said a few choice words.

Something along the lines of “I sure do love that gal.”

If you are late coming to this show, you need to know I love to tell a good story.

I mean, heck, I’ll tell any story, even if it isn’t good, but I love to tell a good one.

My father used to be a fantastic story-teller. Just to make it more entertaining, he would add and subtract and twist a story around until you wouldn’t recognize it if it smacked you upside the head.  I would call him on it, and he would say, “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story, Brat.”

We were close, my Dad and I.

Last night My Captain and I went out to enjoy one of Burt’s Blue Hawaiians, which was, as always, as close to being in a Florida Key Tiki Bar as I’m ever gonna get.   But on the way, we stopped at the Upper Montgomery County Volunteer Fire Department, Montgomery County Fire Station 14 (Whew…that’s a mouthful!) to say “Hey!” to our friends and My Captain’s co-workers.   It happened to be “A-Shift” and that particular shift’s Captain is one of my favorite people, Adam.

Adam is the most sincere man I believe you could ever come across.  He’s an amazing Paramedic and Firefighter, has worked with My Captain for over two decades, and is a well-respected teacher at the Fire Academy.   Adam enjoys a good conversation and laughs easily.  I like him immensely.  It’s hard not to like him.

That just made me think of the saying I find to be SO true: “It’s hard to hate someone who likes you.”

Sorry, shiny object.

Back to the subject: Story Telling.

My Captain sat down at the kitchen table with the shift, and started telling the story of the previous night’s fire (my version of which you will find in ~ Dinner, Or The Lack Thereof ~) in order to 1) entertain his friends, 2) discuss what worked well and what didn’t and 3) talk smack.

Don’t get me wrong,  My Captain is a good story-teller.  He obviously knew what he was talking about, because he lived it first hand.  There was no question that what he was saying was true.

And yet…

I couldn’t help myself.  My father’s blood started showing.  I found myself interjecting repeatedly, just to color in the story more and more.  It humored My Captain at first, then not so much, and then he started giving me the ‘Stink-Eye’ whenever he heard me take in a breath to talk.

Adam smiled and chuckled and nodded good-humoredly not only at My Captain’s story, but at my constant interrupting.  But I knew I was getting really irritating when one of the guys on Adam’s shift… Pat…was searching for the TV remote control to see if the mute button would work on me. (ouch).  Well, there was that clue and then when he said, “Will you just shut up?!”.

Pat is, if nothing else, blunt.

So I shut it, under duress, and was beginning to despair that My Captain would say anything more entertaining than “The intake pressure in the supply line was too high and the total pressure manager went into second stage of relief and dumped water on the driveway….”.  I mean,  sure, the firefighters listening were probably mildly interested, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say entertained.

But then…

My Captain sat back, looked both ways, and got ready to tell something really juicy.  I know this because whenever anyone has to look both ways before saying something, it’s gotta be juicy.  If you have to check for witnesses, it’s a good story.

Adam understood this.  The consummate kind person, he is not one to do a lot of ‘look-both-ways-before-you-say-something-to-check-for-witnesses’ story telling.  He started to laugh before My Captain said anything and said, “If you have to look around before you say it, you probably shouldn’t say it!”  Ah, Adam.  We love you!

But my father wouldn’t have hestitated, not one bit.