“The Dairy Queen Time Machine”

Squibs & Blurbs

by Jerry Zimmerman

TEANECK, NJ—(Weekly Hubris)—7/12/10—When my wife, Sara, was pregnant with our first child, we moved from New York City to Teaneck, NJ.

This was a brilliant move.

We ended up on an idyllic looking street, only one block long, with many-styled homes of medium means, all with backyards and garages (the quest of all us transplanted city dwellers!), each facing our beautifully canopied street: a quiet channel flowing through leaf-to-leaf old maples lining both sides of the block. All quite terrific; yet it was the neighbors that made the place.

The McGraths lived on our left and the Simons on the right. The Simons had three kids and the McGraths had five, and the rest of the block was teeming with more progeny of all ages. When we moved in, we comprised the two of us and a large bump on the front of Sara, which rather promptly and delightfully became Kay. She was hotly followed by two more bumps that gave us Doug and Noah, all within five years. We were then serious, card-carrying members of this happy block of families.

Sara and I were 26 when we first arrived on Frances Street and, as our family began to grow, we soon realized we needed some help to keep all our little ones alive and well and our own sanity somewhat intact. I can only say that I wish every young family had our old neighborhood in which to grow up.

To begin with, we had Bob and Ann McGrath right next door. Ann became our total human resource person, and I mean “human” resource. Besides her obvious intelligence, kindness and biting wit, she already had five kids (for God’s sake!), and actually knew the answer to every death-defying childhood problem we ran into. We didn’t need a pediatrician, nutritionist, or witchdoctor—we just called Ann.

And I mean we called her—in the morning, in the evening and in the dead of the night. The very fact that she was completely unperturbed by every hair-raising story we screeched to her was almost always enough to get us sufficiently through our panic to see the easy and obvious solution. And her patented, “That’s normal; they’ll live!” always turned out to be the best advice when given, which was often. Not that she didn’t know all the specific solutions to real and important difficulties, but it was her mordant and experienced take on life, always given with a genuine laugh, that helped get our young family out of the cribs and into the drivers’ seats, alive and well.

On our other side, the Simons, Eleanor and Harry, represented the next generation up, with older children. They became helpful surrogate parents to us as well as dear friends. Like the McGraths, they were a trusted resource for any- and everything. When Doug, our Number Two, came along, Harry and Eleanor were right there at the house in the middle of the night to take care of Kay until my parents came in from Pennsylvania. It’s hard to beat having friends who are truly “family” living on both sides of your little castle, guarding your moat and your drawbridge and your precious jewels, who happened to be named Kay, Doug, and Noah.

Our whole block was magical. Literally, we knew every single person in each house. My kids had friends of every age, size and color, and innumerable adults became virtual aunts, uncles and grandparents to them, if not in name, then due to their outpouring genuine love and attention. Each home was a way-station on the neighborhood journey, kids moving freely through homes to play, get a snack, find a playmate, or just get away from their own homes.

One of my favorite moments was an early evening in the summer when Sara and I and the kids were having hot dogs and hamburgers in the back yard.  Rose, one of the gang, wandered into the yard to say hello and was happy to sit down and have a couple of hot dogs with us. As she got up to go, I asked her if she didn’t want to stay for some dessert. “Oh, no thanks,” she said, “I was just passing through on my way home for dinner.”

Summers were especially delicious, with everyone outside and roaming around. Sara and I would sit on our front steps in the early evening and watch a swarm of very busy and very delighted children, biking, running, and playing, all the action proceeding in front of us on the easily accessible stage that was our street. It was fabulous, and we all knew it and felt it deep down in our bones.

Often, on these sultry summer eves, I would chase down everyone down from the age of 4 to17 (even the oldest teens wanted to be included, which, of course, they were), tell their parents where we were going, and stuff them all into the seats and back of my station wagon to go to Dairy Queen. Now that was one very cheery, precious load!  We all gorged ourselves on rather disgusting concoctions, sitting and dripping all over the low curbs surrounding the DQ; lots of faces, hands, shirts and shoes splattered with multi-colored drips, splotches and streams and about 2,000 flimsy white paper napkins valiantly enlisted in the hopeless clean-up. Once the crew was sated and grinning and dry enough not to completely re-dye the seats of the wagon, we headed home to finish the day in the warm maple tree gloaming of our home turf.

Recently, I found myself standing in the parking lot of that very same Dairy Queen of yore, happily licking my vanilla and chocolate twist cone. It was a beautiful summer eve and I was alone. My children are grown and don’t even live on this coast anymore. But I was still surrounded by families and kids and teens, and they were dripping and plopping ice cream and syrup all over, and the same fairly useless paper napkins were being vainly mashed on faces and fingers, and everyone was a lot stickier when they headed home than when they arrived.

The years that Sara and I reared our children on Frances street comprised a rare and cocooned period of excitement, wonder and happiness, a long moment in time of true family and big love that we all five shared. And, somehow, for the most part, we were also given the gift of knowing what we had. Watching other young families at Dairy Queen that night, I was electrified to feel again that whole period of my life alive in my mind and my body, a time long past but never gone.

And I smiled, wishing for these noisy, jumping kids, and their grinning, watchful parents the same rooted and lasting joy that had somehow been bestowed on lucky me and my lucky family.