Pure Joy

This evening was the Kingsley Elementary Ice Cream Social. For one ticket you got a cup of vanilla Dairy Queen ice cream in a cup and you could slather it with as many toppings as you liked. For another ticket you could get a Sno-Cone. Popcorn was free. The smells and sights took me back...

When I was a child and Memorial Day arrived, we hit the ground running to the Oak Park Pool. It was a place of pure joy for so many kids for so many years. What I remember is the icy cold blue pool water and the Sno-Cones and popcorn. To this day I love Sno-Cones.

We devised a special way to eat Sno-Cones. When one was handed to you, the perfect sphere of ice crystals was laying precariously atop the thin, conical paper cup. After the first several bites which would painfully freeze your incisors, you would begin the process of gently poking at the ice with the straw to get it to melt. The combination of poking and sunshine would start the Sno-Cone melting into a slushy pool of delectable no-fruit-juice added, high-fructose syrup-laden, food-coloring loaded, sticky goodness that you could either slurp through the straw or drink out of the cone, the inevitable drips on your stomach and bathing suit to be washed away in the pool as soon as adult swim was over.

The school playground was swarming with kids, just as the pool used to be. Music was blaring: "YMCA," songs from "Grease," the "Limbo." Kids were bending over backwards to get under the stick, they were shooting mini basketballs into a mini hoop, they were running around with no apparent aim. It was pure, unadulterated kid-joy, incredible scents and sounds abounded. Just like at the Oak Park Pool.