Double Dip

The ice cream cone is soon to become an endangered species on the Vineyard after a long, hot, delicious summer.

From Columbus Day to May, ice cream cones are simply not to be found up-Island or down. Occasionally, one surfaces in a convenience store ice cream freezer, but those are hardly the same. Popsicles, fudgicles, chocolate-covered ice cream bars are quite acceptable from a grocery freezer, but never an ice cream cone. An ice cream cone must be freshly scooped.

But off-season ice cream cones, as can best be determined, are simply not to be had on the Vineyard.

Surely there are enough winter ice cream-cone lovers on the Island (especially at the prices charged these days for cones) to support at least one ice cream parlor year-round. When Howard Johnson’s orange towers covered the country, ice cream cones were available at any time of year. In Moscow, even in Communist days there was street ice cream to be had all year long — carefully weighed on a scale to make sure that each serving was the same size as the next. Ice cream devotees in fur hats, stamping their feet in the snow, would patiently stand in line for as long as half an hour to savor a scoop of rich, creamy vanilla (the only flavor then available).

Ice cream cone lovers know no seasons. They long only for refreshing ice cream presented in a crunchy cone, to remind them of carefree, happy childhoods.