Memoir: Egg Cream

The sound of fizz squirting into a glass was loud in a quick burst. Some of the chocolate milk spilled over the sides, foaming into the drip pan as it was handed to me over the counter. I put a straw in it, eager for the first sip. My swivel seat started spinning to the left, and I grabbed the granite counter with one hand, my other hand firmly staying connected to the straw.

What a treat, an egg cream. Every once in a while my mother brought me and Kathy up to the candy store on the corner and we got this special soda. My parents didn’t like us drinking the bottled soda my grandfather always had, so these times were memorable.

The smell of that candy store, a mix of tobacco products, candy scents, newspaper aromas is still distinctive to me and catches me when I walk into a place like that even now.

After our egg cream was finished, we slid down from the stools and headed for the door. My mother grabbed Kathy’s hand and we prepared to cross Morris Ave. back to our side of the street toward our brick-fronted apartment house.

My mom stopped in at the drugstore on the corner to speak with the pharmacist. He knew all of us and gave us a friendly smile and wave, although his dark eyes behind the horn-rimmed glasses always looked so serious. After her brief chat we left, Kathy and I running ahead, skipping and laughing in the warm spring afternoon.

We dashed through the lengthy shadows cast by the apartment houses across the street, back into the sunlit edges.

My friends Melodye and Eleanore were there, each holding jump rope ends, waiting for me and the game we played every day. My mom hung out on the stoop talking with Joyce and Mary, my friends’ mothers, while we played rope, laughing and squealing, until dinner time.

Then we all disbanded to our separate homes for supper, homework and tv.

Jyoti