It’s summer time and the living is, well, hot around here.

Heat makes me think of cold makes me think of ice cream. So today’s memory challenge is ice cream from childhood.

The strongest memory I have of ice cream was after going to the dentist. I hated the dentist and he hated me. (He is responsible for all  but one of my dental fears, of which there are many.) After going to the dentist my mom would take me to the ice cream parlor a couple of doors down. I don’t remember the name of the ice cream place. I don’t remember anything about it except that my bribery for going to the dentist and not pitching a fit was that I would get a scoop of chocolate mint ice cream after the torture.

Nicer memories are going to Baskin Robbins when my grandmother got a craving for a black and tan sundae. I loved Baskin Robbins because they put whipped cream on their sundaes and we didn’t get that at home very often.

When I was into roller skating we would often go to Berkeley Farms after skating for a late dinner or a snack. I always had a hot fudge sundae.

At Meadow Homes pool where I would get to go swim in the summer time, they sold ice cream sandwiches in a vending machine. Somehow they always tasted better there than they did when my mom bought them at the store.

At my aunt and uncles house they served Neapolitan ice cream. Hated it. Hated that the strawberry stuff melted into the chocolate and the vanilla. I used to try to eat the pink part first, washing it down with giant gulps of water, but some of it always melted into the good part.

The best memory I had was ice cream at home. Once in a while we made homemade ice cream but mostly we bought it, almost always vanilla but sometimes rocky road. We had Bosco syrup and usually fresh walnuts or almonds from our trees that I would grind up in the little hand grinder. I loved to cover the ice cream with nuts so thick you couldn’t see the chocolate syrup. Sometimes all we had was the ice cream and chocolate sauce and my cousin Danny and I would whip the ice cream round and round until we had ice cream soup and then, drink it with a straw.

Your turn. What are your childhood ice cream memories?