Sunburnt Sprinkles

We rode bikes down sloped lawns into flooded streets, hitting the water with the tenacity of kamikaze pilots.

We waged wars with squirt guns in worlds that didn’t exist, with battle lines drawn in the sunburnt driveways of Merritt Island, Florida. My summers were bright, magical, and long, yawning wide through the eyes of a child.

Most Floridians live near water, which is full of peril, and so most children begin swimming lessons at an early age. This is my sister and I having our daily swim session:

 I continued swimming well after basic lessons. By the time I was 10, I was a competitive swimmer who performed very well and won lots of swim meets and awards etc.

It’s the only sport that came naturally to me. I sat the bench in every other sport. My parents met on the swim team and both swam in college. I suppose it might be in my DNA. I would go on to swim division 1.

In 1994, I was preparing for the summer state championships. As a 9-year-old, I’d only made the finals. The 10-year-olds usually clean out the 10&under events.

So this was my year.

We were a month out from championships and at a family dinner. My uncle, Buddy, said, “Tell you what. For every gold medal you win, I’ll take you to Dairy Queen to get whatever you want.”

This proved to be a mistake because my entire life’s purpose at that point was to win a championship at states.

I went up to championships and cleaned house. I left with 6 gold medals. I’d have been happy with 1. But 6 was amazing. I was over the moon. It was my greatest athletic accomplishment to date. And seeing as I’m 38 now, I doubt I will top it.

My uncle Buddy was in town visiting about 2 months after that. We went out to Dairy Queen three times. Later, he mailed me a gift card to cover the remaining ice creams. I gleefully used it very quickly and never gained any weight (another perk of being a swimmer).

I always ordered the same thing: A vanilla blizzard with rainbow sprinkles mixed in.

It’s a rather straightforward choice and not particularly interesting, given the options. I think I’ve always enjoyed that crunchy texture and flavor that blends with vanilla. Regular ice cream often has superficial toppings that you eat right away, leaving you only with the boring normal flavor beneath. Blizzards go deep.

Admittedly, my simple blizzard preference is on par with my other eating habits. I like plain hamburgers and hotdogs. But if I’m feeling crazy, I’ll get lettuce on my hamburger.

I catch a lot of grief for eating plain foods. For some reason, people get upset that I don’t like condiments and add-ons. But hey, it’s my choice, right?

25 years go by.

The pandemic had just hit. My girlfriend and I were feeling stir crazy as we'd been locked down for months.

So we went to Merritt Island. I showed my girlfriend my home town where so much of my life and my most nostalgic memories originate.

I told her many stories. I showed her my birth tree that my grandparents planted on the day I was born. It was a tiny great oak sapling at the time. Now, it towered over us.

On the way home from the Merritt Island Mall, she asked if we could get some ice cream.

And so, of course, I took her to the exact Dairy Queen that I always went to.

The Dairy Queen is still there, frozen in time. When I went to order, I said, “Yes. A large vanilla blizzard with rainbow sprinkles.”

She laughed and said, “Really?”

I’m a 6’3 athletic looking guy. I have a deep voice. So it’s probably a bit unusual to see me ordering this type of thing. It's admittedly a bit feminine. But hey, the rainbow sprinkle blizzard and I go back. It's an intensely nostalgic food for me. It has an emotional connection to a great period of my life, and an accomplishment that I worked so hard for.

It reminds me of my summers, spent in a good blessed childhood in Merritt Island, Florida.