Tomorrow marks two years that I have been contributing to The Observer with Dory’s Diary.

“Don’t you think it’s about run its course?” I asked.

“No,” he answered.

So, I guess we begin a third year in celebration with all the excitement and enthusiasm of a 6-year-old with the promise of an ice cream cone.

I don’t know why I said

6-year-old exactly. Ice cream has been my favorite dessert for all the years of my life, at least as far as I can remember.

One memory is of having all the ice cream I could eat at family picnics out at Riverside Park when the families went together and purchased two or three five-gallon cans of ice cream from the Blue Mt. Creamery on Washington Avenue and hauled them to the park in the back of pickups. The cans were wrapped in quilted material to keep the ice cream from melting before we were ready to eat it. That was one time everyone could eat all they could hold, and that was plenty.

Sundays were another good time to have homemade ice cream, or any summer day when Dad was home from working on the railroad. I think it was his favorite dessert, too. He would bring home a big chunk of ice, probably purchased from the Young Brothers Fuel Co. on the corner of Jefferson and Elm Street, for they sold coal, wood, hay, grain and ice, and were near the depot where he would go to check how many “times out” he was on the railroad. Or, he may have purchased it at the creamery if he and Mom were in town paying bills or shopping at Montgomery Wards next door.

We would drag out the wooden freezer and remove the metal inner can and turning handle. While the clean-up work was done on those, Dad would put the ice block in a gunny sack and hit it with the backside of a sledge hammer to crush the ice into tiny bits that would fit around the can once it was filled and inserted in the freezer tub.

Mom would put together the ingredients of milk, cream, maybe eggs, sugar and vanilla, possibly a pinch of salt, and pour it into the metal can, inserting the dasher and securing the lid. The can was placed in the freezer and then the ice shavings were filled in all around the can. Rock salt was added to the ice to make the ice melt, which in turn would freeze the ingredients in the can as it was turned round and round.

Dad would fit the metal crank onto the top of the dasher in order to keep the ingredients turning and then fasten it to the metal clips at each side of the wooden tub. Once everything was in order, he would fold gunny sacks into a pillow to put on top and give each of us a chance to turn the crank while turning was easy.

Continuingly adding ice and salt was necessary as it melted and drained out the bottom of the freezer. Later, Dad would take over and finish the hard part, sometimes having one of us sit on the freezer for weight, while he made the final turns.

At a special time, Mom would remove the can from the freezer and take it into the house. Here she removed the dasher and put it on a plate where eager beavers with spoons slurped up the half-frozen ice cream before it could melt completely. Then the can of ice cream was returned to the freezer where Mom would turn a cup upside down and place it over the lid’s dasher hole so that salt water couldn’t seep in. Dad finished packing with ice and salt and covered the freezer with gunny sacks or blankets while it “set” and children could hardly wait.

A gallon of ice cream didn’t go far with a family of five or with guests, but it was sooo good.

Another time comes to mind that didn’t have such happy endings. We were then living in the northeast corner house of the 500 block of Fourth Street, 507 to be exact. It had an upstairs and my sister and I slept together in one of the rooms, my brother in the other. We were old enough to stay alone and go to bed at the proper time even when our parents were out for the evening.

One Saturday night our folks went someplace, probably a dance at the Eagles hall, so they were out quite late. We three children had retired for the night by the time they came home. There was something in my mother that encouraged her to always bring us a treat when they had been out without us, usually a candy bar, gum or some other little snack. This particular night they had chosen ice cream cones. Up the stairs they came, into our room, and gently awakened their sleeping children.

How exciting to open my eyes to the vision of a large ice cream cone transferred from her hand to mine, to Betty’s the same way, and then to my brother’s bedroom where they went through the same routine. Then they quietly went back downstairs and retired for the night. Betty and I partially sat up and took a lick from our cones.

Here comes the sad part.

The next morning – yes, I said the next morning – I awoke to find myself holding an empty ice cream cone in my hand extended out the side of the bed.

On the floor beside the bed was a spot on the linoleum that once had enjoyed the ice cream from my cone.

I was heartbroken. I had had one lick from my ice cream cone, then fallen asleep and lost the rest of the ice cream from its holder to the floor.

My sister said she had tried to awaken me several times, but I just wouldn’t wake up enough to finish the cone, so she finally let me be. She had thoroughly enjoyed hers and so had my brother.

My motto ever since has been to eat ice cream every chance I get to make up for the time that I fell asleep before I had finished the cone.

I have another ice cream story, but I’ll save it for another day.

Veteran newspaperwoman Dorothy Swart Fleshman is a La Grande native. Her column runs every Friday. Reach her by e-mail at fleshman@eoni.com.