When is a Popsicle not a Popsicle, and if you were one, would you be a girl or a boy, and what color would you be?
These are all good questions and will be answered right here, but not right now. You’ll have to wait, Dear Reader, until the end of the story. For the beginning, we must go back to much simpler times on that old familiar street not so far away.
The hottest days of the year in Georgia (the entire month of August!) are called the dog days of summer. Back then, the only way we got through the dog days was with one of our mom’s homemade Popsicles.
Don’t really know if our parents were trying to save money or just were too cheap to buy them from the store, but my brothers and The Sister didn’t care. Mom’s frozen delights were the best on all of Flamingo and even The Duke of Gloucester where all the rich kids lived.
The summertime treat was always cold and refreshing, giving us the energy needed for another hour or two of playing in the hot sun. But a quick energy boost wasn’t what made them so memorable – it was that Mom’s Popsicles were never the same.
The perfect size and shape
Ask most kids living in The Then or The Now, and they will say the size and shape of a Popsicle is important. If too large, it’s impossible to finish before it melts, making a sticky mess all over hands or clothes, and in our case, The Sister’s hair. (Yes, I still feel bad about putting a half-melted one in The Sister’s hair.)
Our mom knew a giant “U” with one stick was the best shape for her Popsicles. The first summer we lived on Flamingo, she made a batch that were U-shaped but with two sticks in each one so we could break them apart and share. I did share — refer to The Sister’s hair comment above. Due to my “sharing,” Mom made the two-stick break-apart ones only once.
The juice surprise
We never knew what flavor of juice Mom would choose. Sometimes she used different flavors of fruit punch, Kool-Aid, Coke, or even orange juice with pulp. But our favorites weren’t any of those. We liked the Popsicles made of chocolate or vanilla pudding, but for me, Jell-O was simply the best.
It’s what’s on the inside that counts
I don’t think Mom’s Popsicles would have been so memorable if she hadn’t frozen stuff inside of them. No matter what juice or pudding she used, Mom always mixed in some kind of chopped fruit. The icy coldness was a perfect match with the satisfying crunch of an apple, the chewiness of raisins, or the sweetness of banana chunks.
And once or twice each summer, the fruit wasn’t even fruit; she changed it out for M&Ms. Like I said at the start, Mom’s were the best and most creative ever. That is, until I started helping in kindergarten.
Kindergarten Popsicles
Last week I read “Sticks” by Diane Alber to a kindergarten class. Seventeen young faces looked on, mesmerized at the main character — a Popsicle that had melted during the summer. The once frozen treat, now only a sticky orange stick, felt useless. Thankfully, by the end of the book, he had found a new purpose: being the missing stick in the roof of an unfinished birdhouse.
After the reading, the children walked back to their chairs to make foam Popsicles of their own. (I was gonna say they scurried back to their chairs, but scurrying isn’t allowed in Ms. Bishop’s kindergarten class.)
The kids chose a colored stick, wiggly eyes or pink eyes with long eyelashes, and a red, blue, yellow, green or pink foam body. After all their hard work, the creators went down the hallway on the first ever Popsicle Parade! Once back in the room, the children were rewarded with a real Popsicle of their own…a large U-shaped one on the end of a stick.
For over sixty years, I’ve thought there would never be better Popsicles than those our mom made back on Flamingo, but now I know I’ve been wrong all these years. A kindergarten foam Popsicle with wiggly eyes, long eyelashes, and different colored foam bodies are the best kind I’ve ever seen.
And a memory I’ll never forget.
[Rick Ryckeley has been writing stories weekly in The Citizen since 2001.]
