Soft Serve

I have always loved soft-serve ice cream, especially vanilla with a chocolate covering. After my mother died, my father and I sometimes drove out on a warm evening to the Dairy Queen on the old Atlanta highway or another on Greensprings Avenue just to eat large swirled cones.

It's no surprise, then, that upon seeing the old-fashioned dairy bar on Highway 28 in Whitwell on Monday, I knew I'd have to stop at the end of work one day. Today was the day.

First, I ordered and then I asked the owner, whom I had seen earlier in the day at a neighbor's lawnmower repair shop, if I could wash my hands. I explained that I had been walking around all day. She said, "Come on around, honey."

Just inside the screen door, another woman and three young children sat, reading and playing games, an after-school ritual I suspect at a family business.

After drying my hands, I walked out and around front, where two high school students were placing their orders. Before I got to the window, the owner came outside and around the corner, handed me my chocolate-covered cone, and said, "It's on the house, sweetie!"

I protested, but she would not take my money.

Now that's what I call soft serve.