The Best Damn Ice Cream…
A rare look inside our lives…for a short time, when I was about seven or so, my “family” and I lived in Nelson BC just across from a Dairy Queen. Our home for a couple months was some flea-bag dive motel, that tiny little shack looking thing in back, over my left shoulder, second photo. Today it’s a halfway house of sorts…or something. The step-dad was a career petty criminal (have cheque book, will travel) and we often lived on the road. out of the car or crashing at cheap-ass rooming houses, the law and those he swindled always in hot pursuit.
Living near a DQ as a kid was pure torture. I’d often stare longingly across the street towards that temple of ice cream, knowing the folks only had money for booze and smokes and little else. Stand there, stare, hope, pray, scour the ground for loose change. Nothing. My dream was not a terribly big one, even a lowly cone would do, but it seemed unreachable. Hang head, shuffle back in, watch Bugs Bunny with my sister, while our fine parents drank themselves into a stupor. Yet, again.
Fast forward to the summer of 2016, we got some gigs in the Nelson area. Driving by, heads turn…the old motel…it’s still there…the Dairy Queen too! Connie, knowing the story, shouts “Stop…ICE CREAM!” “It’s been forty five years…it’s time.” Hard brake, jump out excitedly, grab a shake. Connie’s paying! I’m in heaven! That’s little me smiling, satisfied. Got my Dairy Queen. Finally!
…the best damn ice cream I ever had.
From the area…
Troup Junction.
Under Wraps.
Short Subjects: reports that for any number of reasons are brief in nature. They might be updates to older articles, previews of posts planned or not yet published, brief snippets of things that don’t fit in anywhere else or subjects that are so obscure that information on them can’t be found. Or sometimes we just ramble on about Lord knows what.
If you need any more information on what we talked about here, by all means contact us!
Date of adventure: December, 2016.
Location: Nelson, BC.
It took forty plus years…DQ, it’s good to see you.
A childhood “home” in back and the best damn ice cream, ever…
With all of that happening in your young life, I find it amazing that you turned out as well as you did. Thanks for the little back story.
That must have been a standard plan for Dairy Queens back in the day. It’s identical to the one in my home town of Brandon, Manitoba. Still running from May Long to Thanksgiving. No DQ Grill and Chill for miles.
I don’t talk much of my early days. Even friends don’t know much of the story. Every now and then, however, a little bit of it sneaks out, like what you read here. Turned out okay, but had a my own share of demons as a young adult account of this upbringing. Some are still hanging around, in hiding, showing up from time to time. But back to the DQs, yes many were like this one, ice cream only or at best with a limited grill and often only open seasonally. There used to be one just down the road from BIGDoer HQ, into the 90s. It’s now a regular Dairy Queen.
I grew up in Brandon Man. in the 70’s and 80’s and have fond memories of the DQ there. First getting my grandpa to take us there after supper, wasn’t hard to do LOL! Then when I was older in junior high at Earl Oxford my friends and I would walk to shop class at Neelin High and always make a stop at that DQ!
Thanks for sharing some DQ memories!
A sad story. To help you feel better. Happy Happy Birthday. Hope you have a most fantastic day!
Well, thank you for taking the time to look it up. I’m touched.
Sounds like it was worth the loooong wait.
It was worth it. Nothing ever tasted so good! Thanks for commenting.