A Purple Frozen Summer

Another summer day had passed, and as the sun began to set, the children were all wrangled in from the trees lining the creek, and we made our way back to the garage, where we would line up for a Fla-vor-ice Freeze Pop.

The senses I associate most with these treats are not borne from their variety of flavors, but are more in relation to the type of day that ended with a cool stick of purple ice in hand. The feel of the sharp morning air cutting through my hair as the neighborhood gang raced through the park; the bitter scent of the broken grass and crushed dandelions as we marched our way through the woods behind the elementary school; the crack of an overturned rock in the creek bed, unearthing a world where two legs seemed several dozen too few.

When we returned home, the trees would be silhouetted against the sky, now orange and red and purple like the treats we were going to receive. The cool, fresh breeze of the refrigerator opening graced the garage, and as I was handed the plastic tube of ice, the frost on the outside would melt into my fingers, and send a relaxing chill up my arm. The ice came packaged in a clear tube, whose edges were sharp and dug into the corners of your mouth, but such a small nuisance would not keep us from the chilled leftover slush at the bottom of the wrapper once all the rest of the ice had been eaten, which always clung to the bottom of the tube. After finishing off several ice pops, the sun would have set, and with sweet, sticky, tie-dyed hands, we would find our parents wander back home.