Walking to Ice Cream

It is a summery Sunday evening as the four of us walk down Oakton Avenue to get ice cream. It is dark and most of the small individual businesses- primarily thrift shops & motor part stores- are dimmed and void of people. "It's so high school to walk to places like an ice cream store," Kelly says. I say we might look like some kind of wild, badass Skokie posse but most of us are walking in sandals, however, so I digress that fantasy quickly. We stop and peek into the windows of salvage shops and eye old cameras and a frightening PeeWee Herman "Chairy" toy. There is sudden movement in the background and the sudden emergence of a face of a man (a shopkeeper staying late) makes Kelly yelp and jump away from the window. We settle into the ice cream shop that is thankfully open until ten. There is an older woman- seventy-eight or so- diving her spoon into a fat Sunday as we scope out ice cream flavors such as "green tea" "Queso" "Mango" "avocado" "green apple" "yam" and "tiramasu". I settle for something less adventurous but incredibly rewarding- a delicious turtle fudge with butter pecan ice cream, caramel, & fudge. Here's to summery Sunday nights!