Country Gal by Vanita Blundell July 18, 2006

Country Gal by Vanita Blundell 7-18-06
When I asked my kids in Sunday School what exciting thing they were going to do this week. One little boy said the Ice Cream Social was one of his favorite things to do. I can remember when I was a kid the Ice Cream Social was almost as exciting as a holiday. We were curious what kind of ice cream would be there. I do not know why I was so excited -I always had chocolate and it usually was my moms. I could have had it at home but it always was better to eat it with my friends. Mom had her own milk and cream as most everyone else did, too. The kicker was ice- We would get the ice on Sunday after church from the locker. No, the locker was not open on Sunday- they had a coin operated vending machine. It was really neat when you could get this huge block of ice- I think it was 50 pound block- Dad would wrap in burlap and put it in the trunk of the car and hurry home. We must have put it in the freezer until time to use it. Dad would come in early and put the ice in the burlap sack and smash it to smithereens so we could put in the ice cream freezer. When we no longer had our own milk and cream Mom froze our own ice in gallon milk cartons. We always kept our ice cream bucket in the horse tank year around. It was not very desirable to look at since it was all mossy and - now that I think about it- it was really gross looking. After all that of that we still had to crank the ice cream- this was before electric freezers. I sat on the freezer and Dad would crank. Most of the time I had as much ice on me as there was in the freezer. I knew I was growing up when I could help Mom crank the ice cream. That way Dad could stay in the field a little longer. Mom and I would take turns cranking. She would do 50 turns then me - then as it got harder we would crank 25 turns - then 10 -then hopefully Dad would be in to see if it was hard enough to take the paddle out and repack the freezer so the ice cream could ripen. The most memorable ice cream social that I remember was the year that Dad had just gotten a different pick-up- bright orange. Mom and Dad put me in the back to keep the ice cream from turning over. Usually this time of year was very busy for us. We were trying to get the wheat ground worked and the feed planted. So Dad was not in an extremely good mood to start with. Mom was worried that we were going to be late and so Dad was not wasting anytime. When we got to the bridge by Dales the County was putting in a new bridge and the road was closed. Mom said she thought that we should turn around and go back just a little ways and take another route to town. Dad explained to her (in a tone that one never argued with but once) that they always put road closed but it really was not. Mom told me to hang on and Dad backed up and got a good run at the huge ditch where the bridge was to be and we went down at a fast rate of speed and went up bouncing and throwing dirt, dust and rocks everywhere. Keeping the ice cream freezer upright was a trick but I managed it somehow. After we got back on the road we just went on in to town just as if everything was just fine and dandy. Mom was a little frazzled and I was just that much closer to God. This was another experience that improved my prayer life.