End Of The Season

The closing went smoothly, other than the banker spending 20 minutes convincing my buyer to not default on a $400,000 loan. There was a lot of mumbling at their end of the table, and I felt like I was in a different dimension. All the stress. All the stress.

I set the only 2 keys to the store on the conference table. One for the handle and the other, the deadbolt. After 48 years in our family, I felt the crush of letting go of something our family owned for so long and for not knowing what tomorrow would look like. I just knew it couldn’t involve the business. 

When I was 3 years old, my parents bought the local Dairy Queen for three thousand dollars, using Grandad’s money, because- who had three thousand dollars back then?

This is where my siblings and I grew up. Watching the summers go by through the ‘floor to ceiling’ glass windows of the 1950’s style 2-window walk-up. Keen to the muscle cars roaring by. Dating the boys who drove them. Sneaking cans of our dad’s Old Style out of the walk-in cooler.

This is where I heard of Elvis’ death from our transistor radio that sat on the shelf above the clock. This is where we learned loyalty. “If you want to go to college, go put yourself on the schedule,” our dad told us. 

This is where my own children grew up.

My daughters, who worked their summers during high school, out-grew the business.

The oldest would have nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with helping me.

The youngest went to college in Michigan and met and married and stayed.

In the end, it was my middle daughter who made me realize that I needed to sell. Alison was my right hand- and there was nothing I couldn’t accomplish with her at my side. We sold thousands of cakes each summer. She custom-decorated and air-brushed colors to perfection. We had midnight-madness sales on the 4^th of July. We grilled hot dogs for charity on parade day. She helped make out the schedules. She ran the store on days I had to attend events when I served as Village Trustee. She was head of the DQ Crew, and everyone loved her. Once, she gathered up the employees to tell them they were starting a Union. Dairy Queen Local #1, of course. I wanted to be in it, but she explained to me that’s now how it worked. The crew built a playlist of ‘favorite songs of that summer’ that we Spotify to each other to this day. From Wham to Enrique to Milli Vanilli to BSB and Disco Inferno. ‘80s at 8 was non-negotiable. It’s what we listened to.

But, in real life, Alison was an inner-city high school teacher living 45 minutes away. She was on the negotiating team for CTU Local #1 when they were headed for a strike. Meetings would last well into the night. She coached girls’ softball and then also played softball with her friends in a summer league. She was taking classes to become a board-certified instructor, and a principal. She had a big life. She lived like there was no tomorrow, and I knew that she would never abandon me, so I needed to abandon it. Because I also knew, I could never run the store without her-nor did I want to.

The DQ Crew I loved came back every summer throughout high school and college, but then the day came when they got a ‘real job’ and didn’t return. The weight grew heavier.

I came alone to the closing. I suppose my brother could have come- but he had been a teacher for so long he wasn’t part of it anymore. He came last night to say goodbye to the old building. We signed our family names in sharpie marker on the concrete under a loose wall tile and then screwed it down. It was his idea. I thought it was genius.

My father once told me, “Nancy, don’t ever sell that store.” But, Dad, you wouldn’t recognize the city anymore. His words so heavy.

Dad taught high school Industrial Arts for 30 years. Coached varsity basketball for half of those and was the only coach to win the SICA Championship in 1963.

For all of the years I stood behind that sliding window, students from years past asked about the Coach, and I would give them an update: he was out running around for me or up in Canada fishing. He was fine.

When he passed, the whole town knew.

And the whole town came to the funeral.

I went back to the high school to get his championship basketball and all the photos of his teams over the years.

Everyone at the funeral found them a joy to look at.

My attorney handed me an envelope, I stood and forced a smile. I swallowed very hard and paused. I wished him well. The best of luck. 

But, he was already successful. He had several stores in another town and a baby on the way.

I left the closing and drove for the last time to the ice cream stand I loved for so long and would love forever and pulled into the lot before the new owner came.

“She’s a pretty girl,” I whispered to myself and kissed the concrete wall that had carried me – literally carried me through the hardest times in my life because, to me, the place was joy.

It was a safe place. The world that I built inside these walls was safe.

The employees came back year after year, and we bowled together, had movie nights, Taco Bell food runs, and water-gun fights. We cried in the walk-in cooler and held therapy in the bathroom. We shared cigarettes. We landed a spot on a morning talk show because the host lived nearby and loved our ice cream. And every so often, TP’d peoples’ houses and left an abandoned couch on their lawn.

We were a:

Dilly-dipping

Banana splitting

Sundae-topping

Blizzard-blending

Cone-krunching

Smile-serving

DQ Crew