It was the root beer, on tap, that had me as wide-eyed and eager as an eight year old girl at a backyard graduation party recently. With a grin on his face and a foamy cup in his hand, my Tom endeared himself anew as he handed me the best fresh drawn root beer I’ve had in decades.
I closed my eyes, smelled the distinct essence of licorice, and slowly drank in my childhood.
Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago mid-century, we didn’t have extra money for many vacations. Dinah Shore’s blowing of a kiss after singing “see the USA in your Chevrolet” was usually our only entrée to cross-country family adventures.
Our own backyard was our summertime retreat, especially on weekends when relatives and friends would come by for conversation and laughter, circling the driveway in dance as the record player sat in the open window of the kitchen, blaring the songs of the Old Country . . .
. . . and food. Always food. Pastries and cookies, coffeecakes and bowls laden with fruit of the season. Sometimes, there would be bricks of ice cream from Walgreens; squares of New York Cherry or Neapolitan, lined up like boats on a sea of plates, the spoons for oars.
The best treat of all would come home in gallon jugs from a screened in porch attached to a service garage on Maywood’s 5th Avenue. Strutzels root beer stand made the most heavenly root beer there ever was. My anticipation would begin when Ma pulled out the huge glass containers from under the kitchen sink. More often than not, we children would climb into our own Chevy, Penny and Dottie and Teddy and sometimes Louie, and ride along with Daddy to that orange screened in porch of root beer renown.
There was always a line at Strutzels; high school kids gathering on date night, a baseball team after the game, folks from the neighborhood. One could buy a glass of foamy root beer for five cents. There was also a schooner for just a bit more. A few tables were set up inside and out, but it was mostly lingering on the sidewalk along the street. Our jugs would be filled and I’d watch the foam rise to the top, licking my lips, wishing for hurry.
Off we would go, the glass jars with their handles safely positioned in PenDot’s interior; homeward bound as dusk thought of settling in.
Out came the ice cream scoop, the napkins, the spoons, the straws and the glasses. Slowly the scoop, dipped in water first, would carve out a mound of ice cream and be placed in a glass. Slowly the root beer would flow and then fizz and then foam as the ice cream floated about in the best volcanic eruption of summer. Layers of ice cream and foam and root beer. Layers of summertime all in a glass.
Brown cow, black cow, root beer float; whatever you call it, I call it heaven on a hot summer’s eve.
Image of Elsie, the Borden mascot, from texasarchive.org.
Oh Penny, except for the Old Country dancing and the pastries, your summers sounds a lot like mine were! Though I’ve never been much of a pop drinker, like you I have always loved root beer and your description here – of both your summers and the root beer floats have me nostalgic. We didn’t have Strutzels but we had Dog ‘n Suds and they served that same kind of creamy, foamy rootbeer that I’ve been looking for ever since and haven’t found. And put together with vanilla ice cream, there isn’t a dessert to match it! I’m hoping the root beer Tom brought to you, which obviously inspired this post, is local and available to us all!
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Simpler pleasures, weren’t they Janet? I recall a Dog ‘n Suds near the Hillside Theater. A drive-in where you could pull up and they brought out your root beer out to the car. It was good. The canned root beer available now just isn’t quite the same to me. Our neighbor, Rick, whose house the party was at, bought the root beer, a keg, and some bottles of other sodas, at a store somewhere in Chicago where they sell these flavors. I’ll have to find out where.
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My mother’s parents (Germans) made beer during the Depression and would have “card parties” where they would set up card tables and people would pay admission to come to the house to play cards, and beer would be served. I’m not sure if this was a sly way of getting around prohibition and surviving the Depression or if it was just outright illegal, but it was survival! However, my mom’s father would always make one barrel of root beer for the kids. So as poor as they were – and they were very poor – my mother grew up drinking root beer probably as good as what you had at the neighbor’s house party! (I hope I didn’t tell you this story already, I have a habit of repeating stories but the root beer made me think of it!)
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What a slice of family history that is, Janet. How inventive people had to be during the Depression and Prohibition to just get by (and maybe have a little fun in the process). I’m sure that root beer was easy to swallow, full of flavor and foam. If I’m not mistaken, it was the Germans who invented root beer and introduced it to the American culture. The root beer stand I wrote about, Strutzels, was likely German. All I know is that it was good. I don’t remember this story from you, and it really doesn’t matter as it is worth repeating.
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Your description is so vivid Penny, that I feel as if I can remember summer evenings like this, and can taste the root beer floats. Evenings like this were not part of my childhood, but at this very moment it feels as if they were. Root beer is not a tradition over here, but sasparilo, and dandelion & burdock come close. The soda fountain wouldn’t feature in the English memory either, but men in lorries would come round regularly selling soda in glass bottles with rubber stoppers to keep in the fizz. They would sell the normal stuff like lemonade, cherry ade, dandelion and burdock, and a reddy orange brew called Tizer.( no coke or Dr pepper though) You bought the bottles from him and then returned them when he next came round. Not the same as your beautiful description…..but still makes me smile.
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What a wonderful memory that is, Janice. I can just about imagine the men and their lorries and children flocking ’round to get their favorite fizzy drink. It would make a wonderful post. Do consider it. I’ve not had sasparilo, but it was known in the states. I’m wondering about burdock and dandelion. I have Tom’s great aunt’s recipe for dandelion wine, though I’ve never tried that. Ah, the summery things to consider. I’m glad to hear about your smile.
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I can taste this post, Penny. It’s THAT good. 🙂
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Why, thank you Andra. You are kind to say so.
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What a wonderful description, Penny! I love the word picture with the ice cream blocks all lined up and the spoons like oars! I can see it! You’ve shared such a delightful summer image and more importantly, snapshot of happy family times! The memory-making of the summer family and friend gatherings far outweighs any travel, I believe. You give me such a good idea about having a family gathering with rootbeer floats! I need to be sure to do that before the summer is over! I wish I could introduce my little gals to someplace like the parlor your remember…they are now few and far between! Debra
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Oh do, Debra. The girls would enjoy it with all the fizzy foam oozing out and the mingling of root beer and ice cream, and the rest of the family would probably enjoy it as well. A few years ago, Tom asked if I could provide some sort of refreshment for a group of young men from church that would be stopping by after a game of softball. He balked, excuse the pun, when I suggested root beer floats. Well, they came and I conquered, finally just leaving the root beer and ice cream on the table as they loaded and reloaded their glasses.
I wish these places still existed as well. The chain establishments are just not the same.
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Dear Penny, I so like that phrase you used “wishing for hurry.” It encapsulates a child’s life. And my life now sometimes! Sometimes when I visit my brother and sister-in-law he will make me a “root beer float.” He’s a master at this. I don’t have a memory of mom ever making them, but she must have because I came to love them somewhere. Peace.
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Thank you, Dee. What a special treat that must be from your brother to you. I imagine you patiently waiting as he scoops the ice cream and pours in the root beer. It’s an art to not have it all fizz over the side of the glass. Of course, that is also part of the fun.
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Oh, Penny, I did love this. So atmospheric, I was almost there. I have never in my life had root beer!
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Real root beer is a treat, with a distinct aroma and flavor. Add the ice cream, and bliss occurs, Kate. If you are ever in the States and come across some, do take a taste.
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I shall put it on my America list.
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What a delicious and tasty blog. My family didn’t have holidays either (I can remember the only 2 we had, vividly) because we had no car. And so we learned to make our own fun – as did you, I can see.
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We only had 2 as well, Juliet, and, like you, I can remember them vividly. I think that I am never bored in part because we had to make our own fun happen and my family set good examples in simple pleasures, as I’m sure your family did. We did have a car, but it wasn’t until I was 6 years old and it was mainly to get my dad to work in the city.
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Yummmmm! I remember those summer days. While we weren’t singing Greek songs, there may have been a rousing chorus of “Bill Grogan’s Goat” or “Found a Peanut”. Dad would bring home a big glass jug from the Icy Root Beer stand. I always wondered about the name because no one put Ice in root beer. Mom would tell stories of home made root beer in their basement exploding and startling them all when the temperature changed. We would put vanilla ice cream in our root beer so that we could have our own black cow at home. Mmmm, I can still taste it. We would sit on the front porch and invite the neighbors.
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Now I’ll be humming “Found a Peanut” as I doze off to sleep. Oh, Janet, it sounds like the same kind of stand and the same kind of jug. I wonder if the icy came from the mugs at the stand being frosted. Those black cows have a taste that is so distinct, don’t they? I loved licking the foamy part, then the ice cream and sipping through the straw. What wonderful summer days those were.
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Now you give me a taste for our Summer Cooler in days gone by, Chocolate Phosphates….seltzer water and chocolate syrup, haven’t had one in years. I will have to try it to see why I liked it…..Oh! thats easy, it has chocolate….
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Ha! Anything chocolate is great! Oddly enough, I’ve never had a chocolate phosphate – and me a chocaholic. Go figure.
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Good thing I’m late reading blog posts, and we’ve already been to the grocery for the week. Otherwise, I would have absolutely, positively HAD to buy some root beer and some vanilla ice cream! 🙂 I haven’t had a root beer float for many years. I agree with Andra, reading here I could taste one for sure!! Maybe next week?
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I thank you, Karen, and now you should put ice cream and root beer on next week’s grocery list and have a treat from the past.
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There are few things more tasty than a root beer float. Our place was A&W. Not the same as what’s in the can now; it was much better from the tap and in a frosty glass mug. My mother would treat us now and then when we were in the larger town to the north of us. Thanks for sharing slices of your childhood.
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I’ll second that, Teresa. A&W was good and so much better than the can, I agree. Those memories aren’t far below the surface, are they, of those simpler pleasures of being treated to something like a root beer float? You are welcome.
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The ice cream shop/root beer float thing was the same in my Eastern Washington State childhood. Yummm…..
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Isn’t it interesting that even with regional differences, we shared some of the same small pleasures in childhood, Sallie?
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Penny, this post had my mouth watering at your vivid and beautiful description of a summer treat. We didn’t have much in the way of holidays when I was a child either, but like Janice we would buy dandelion & burdock or sarsaparilla or ginger beer or lemonade (in our case from the village shop) in bottles you could take back and get your deposit refunded.
I’ve only had root beer once, when our son took me to New York on a trip, and I’m trying to imagine that distinctive flavour with a scoop of ice-cream. 🙂
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We did, indeed, make our own holidays, didn’t we Perpetua? Your drinks all sound so interesting, as I’m sure ours do. Those flavors of summer we remember.
The flavor is like no other when mixed with ice cream, nor is the texture of the foam.
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[…] were other destinations of frozen delight; a local restaurant specializing in banana splits, a root beer float, my first frozen chocolate banana at a local festival. Then there was THE ice cream parlor. The […]
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Was just doing a search on Strutzel’s Root Beer this evening. Left Chicago in 1969 to go to college on the left coast. Moved East in 1984, and still here in Central Virginia. Thanks for blogging about some great memories!
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I’m so pleased that this brought back some great memories. It is amazing how Strutzel’s Root Beer is remembered by so many. Our neighbor’s father grew up in Maywood and we’ve had a few fun conversations and Strutzel’s invariably comes up. Thank you for stopping by and for commenting.
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