Somewhere around the summer of 1985 my Grandfather ran an ice cream bicycle franchise out of the back of his army surplus store in Kokomo, IN. During the summers, when I wasn't in school, I'd hang out at my grandfather's store, playing with the army surplus stuff, wishing I could shoot the guns, and looking for excuses to break into the giant freezers in the back room.
My Grandfather and I had a deal that I was allowed to eat any "rejects"...a surprising number of ice cream products came out broken that summer, but I only feel so bad about that now. My Grandparents still managed to be top sellers in the state and won a free carribean cruise out of it, which represents the only time my Grandmother was ever on a plane.
But what I think about most about that summer...when I think about it at all...is the lives of the young men who worked for my grandfather. Late high school or college age guys who spent their summers riding a bicycle with a freezer basket full of ice cream around the booming metropolis of Kokomo. In a day and age before Internet, without much video games, and in a town where office jobs weren't exactly plentiful...it doesn't seem like such a bad way to spend your summer. Occassionally, when the sun is out, it even sounds better than jockeying a desk in NYC. But then on the other hand, when their work days were over they had nothing to do but drive around the same city they'd biked around...whereas I get to go play in the city that never sleeps. It's a trade off.
Anyway...Seam rules.
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