I think they get $3 for a small ice cream cone at one of the local frozen custard franchises these days. Yet, there are usually folks standing in line, twenty dollar bills (or credit cards) in hand, waiting to place an order. It wasn’t always like that.
When I was a young boy, one of the great pleasures in life was a trip to the Dairy Queen. An ice cream cone at the DQ was a nickel back then. For ten cents, they would pile the ice cream so high, it resembled a miniature Tower of Pisa, leaning of course, which was bad. Having six-inches of ice cream fall on the back seat of the family sedan was no fun at all. Plus, it was hard to lick all that ice cream fast enough to keep up with the melting surplus. But I did my best! Remember the “curl” at the top? That was the best part of all.
Going to the Dairy Queen was not a regular event for our family, but marked a truly special occasion. Sometimes on a summer evening, my Dad would take a load of the neighborhood kids and sometimes it would be Dr. Richmond, Billy’s dad. It was Billy who introduced me to what is still my favorite dessert in the entire world – a vanilla malted milk shake. As I recall, a hand-made vanilla malt was 20 cents in the 1950s, big money in those days. It was a rare treat. Sometimes I’d save up two week’s allowance and blow it all on a malted. The richness of the malted milk combined with the butter fat-loaded ice cream was something special. Ice cream sundae’s, full size sundaes, were 25 cents. My mom used to order one of those, always hot chocolate. If Daddy ordered anything at all, it was a nickel cone.
DQ is a relatively new company, founded in 1938, and one of the first soft-serve ice cream companies in the United States. Today, they have thousands of stores worldwide and the ice cream is good, just not as rich as it once was.
In a way, I feel sorry for most of the modern kids. Parents shower them early on with cash and gifts. They want for nothing. A Ben & Jerry’s is no big deal, and a Dairy Queen – unless it’s some sort of mega-concoction called a Blizzard – is simply ho hum.
What possible joy can children have in today’s affluent society that would compare with a simple ice cream cone for a child of the fifties?