There’s a first time that you learn about every fact in the world you encounter in your life, from the most fascinating obscure esoterica to the most banal, quotidian details. Until I was eight or nine, I didn’t know there was a strawberry flavor of ice cream. I knew about chocolate and vanilla and peppermint, but not strawberry. This story is about how I learned about the existence of strawberry ice cream.
My Dad grew up in Texas. He had lived in New York City, Connecticut, and Massachusetts for years, and his Southern accent had faded. He told me that he made a conscious effort to lose it when he was in college, but that sometimes, having multiple margaritas will bring back a drawl.
He lived on a hockey floor his freshman year at Boston University, and one player kept calling him “Tex.” One time, when he was in an especially bad mood, they crossed paths and he said “Hey, Tex.” My Dad picked him up, pressed him against the wall, and said “Don’t ever call me Tex again!” He didn’t.
Being born and bred in New England, I didn’t have a Texan accent. And despite growing up twenty miles from Boston, I didn’t have a Boston accent either.
When I was seven or eight, my Dad took me to visit my grandfather and his wife Bev (my dad’s stepmother) in Arlington, Texas. We’d visited Texas together before, but this was my first time visiting when I wasn’t a baby or a toddler. In other words, it was my first visit as a real, conscious person.
We met up with my grandfather halfway to Arlington, and my dad left me with Grandpa Jim so we could have some alone time together. On the way back to his house, Jim drove us to a gas station to fill up. That’s when he asked me the question, in his thick Texan drawl:
“Son, do you want some strawberry ass cream?”
Say what now? For about seven seconds, I wasn’t sure that that was what he had said. Even as a young boy, I understood that that would be a very strange and uncomfortable thing for him to say.
And then, after a long and uncomfortable pause, I realized two things: there must be a strawberry flavor of ice cream, and he was asking me if I wanted some. I said sure, he bought some, and we enjoyed it that night with Bev, his wife.
I didn’t tell him then what I thought he’d said, but I told him years later, and we both had a good, long laugh about it.
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