When my younger sister, brother, and I were growing up in
Baton Rouge, our daddy worked shift work in the caustic plant at Dow Chemical.
Some evenings when he worked “days,” after supper he would take us kids out for
a drive to give Mama some time to herself. Sometimes, we would go to the Brown’s
Velvet Creamery for ice cream. There, I discovered my all-time favorite flavor,
chocolate cherry almond. Yum!
After we ate our ice cream, we would stop by Howell Park if
we saw the lights on for a beer league baseball game. We didn’t know anyone
playing, but we enjoyed watching almost as much as the men enjoyed playing. One
memorable play stuck in my memory. The batter hit a fly ball. The base runner
on second yelled, “I got it!” As the second baseman watched the ball plonk to
the ground, off ran the base runner for third.
In the decades that have passed, I have attended any number
of baseball games at just about every level of play, from t-ball to college to
Cubs games at Wrigley Field. I have witnessed innumerable spectacular plays, including
a triple play at the Astrodome, but none has stuck in my mind like that clever
play at Howell Park.
While I have enjoyed baseball over the decades, I have
never found another brand of ice cream that offered the flavor combination of
chocolate cherry almond that so soothed my soul although I have long longed for
such a find. I have found chocolate cherry or cherry almond or chocolate almond
or whatever, but never chocolate cherry
almond.
Recently, I found an oasis of taste bud nostalgia in the
form of a Ghiradelli flavor, cherry tango chocolate with crushed almonds.
Ecstatic at my find, I bought two bags which I brought back to Home Base! Sadly, the Baseball World Series was over at
the time of my find. However, I have
been content to savor the candy after supper, anticipate the college baseball
season which will open soon, and giggle again at the memory of that cunning play
at Howell Park!
