CityView Magazine

CityViewNC .com | 9 center sometime around the 1980s. I loved Don Clayton like a father. He treated me like a son. He was a business entrepreneur, and always coming up with an idea to complement his Putt-Putt Golf Courses of America franchise system with venues throughout the country, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Japan. Putt-Putt was his pride and joy, but he also tried business ventures here to include Slide- Slide, which was successful; Skate-Skate, which wasn't successful; the Wow-Wow restaurant; and Scoop-Scoop, the ice-cream with a drive- thru that proved something of a problem. "Notice anything about the drive-thru?" Todd Lecka, who was Don Clayton's brother- in-law, was asking me one night when business wasn't exactly hopping at the Scoop-Scoop. "My brother-in-law put the entrance to the drive-thru backward. You have to order from the passenger's side of your car." If you want to know about life, and construction, acquaint yourself with Todd Lecka – 93 years young and still the smartest man I've ever known. Criminal Justice Technology Fast Track Plan Complete your associate degree in one year! Employment opportunities exist in a variety of local, state, and federal law enforcement, corrections, and security fields! Make the SMART choice for your education! New Program (3 Semesters) – Effective Fall 2020! Receive training in the following areas: • Criminal justice systems & role within society • Criminology • Juvenile justice • Criminal and constitutional law • Investigative principles • Ethics • Community relations Questions? Contact Jeffrey Zack, zackj@faytechcc.edu FALL CLASSES BEGIN AUGUST 17 – REGISTER NOW! FALL CLASSES BEGIN AUGUST 17 – REGISTER NOW! www.faytechcc.edu | (910) 678-8400 www.faytechcc.edu | (910) 678-8400 'Stop, Mr. Ice Cream Man!' OK, back to ice cream. You can't go wrong with ice cream. Kids love it with birthday cakes. So do adults. My favorite is vanilla, but I'm becoming partial to cookies-n-cream … not by the quart, but by the tub. And my old pal, Gary Henshaw, and I always stop at the Dairy Queen off I-64 at Gum Spring, Virginia, on the way back from Charlottesville from a putting competition. He orders the Snickers Blizzard. I order the Strawberry Sundae. We don't tell his wife about our reason for being late. But we swear on the Bible traffic was busy along the interstate. All of us have ice cream memories, from the serenade of the Popsicle bike bells to Mr. Soee coming down the streets of our neighborhoods in those days of yesteryear. Which reminds of the story about the late Willie Edge and John Manning, who once decided to operate a neighborhood ice-cream truck. Ice cream lore has it they'd get so wrapped up in "the spirits" of swapping tales of their life's adventures they'd forget to stop when the kids came out to wave down the ice cream truck. "Mr. Ice Cream Man, stop!" the kids would yell in dismay. "Stop Mr. Ice Cream Man, stop! Please stop Mr. Ice Cream Man, please stop." Willie and John, ice cream lore has it, would just drive right on by. eir ice cream- truck business, ice cream lore has it, went broke before summer's end. Epilogue We've had some tough months with this coronavirus that keeps us home, away from one another and tests our patience and our resolve. But we still have Dairy Queens and other ice cream venues. All of these memories, and I've worked up a hankering for a scoop of so-serve vanilla at the Dairy Queen in Westwood Shopping Center. Make that, if you will, a cherry sundae … just like those sweet Sunday evenings of such gentle times gone by. Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at bkirby@ cityview.com or billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961

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