Friendly's

When i was sixteen, i got a summer job at Friendly's ice cream restaurant. I was finally making the big bucks: $3.35 an hour, the national minimum wage. The staff was larger than at Haywood's, my $2.85 job from the summer before (my manager there, Chuck, had actually offered me minimum wage to stay, but i had my sights set on new horizons).
Friendly's had actual waitresses, not just counter girls, and i got the job i wanted: ice cream scoop, a job that didn't permeate your skin like other food jobs. The ice cream section was in front, and was almost a separate entity from the restaurant itself. We would take order slips from the waitresses, but had no direct interactions with the rest of the food prep staff. Much of our business was from customers who came to our counter for ice cream only, so i had to learn the workings of a cash register. On occasion we would run a product out to a table, but we mostly stayed behind our counter. We had blue and white polyester uniforms. There were always two or three scoops on duty, depending on the time of day. Since i liked ice cream and people, i liked the work. And the food, too. Longer shifts came with food breaks, and the swiss burger on rye was my favorite.
We scooped cones and bowls, sold half gallons, and made sundaes. Friendly's had a relationship with Hershey's, so many of our items were based on their products. We had maybe twelve different flavors (plus others in half gallons) and all the toppings you could want, including a hot fudge machine which operated at very high temperatures. There was a different kind of cameraderie than at Haywood's, which had had the slight feel of a group of roustabouts. It was a touch more impersonal here, being part of a large chain. There was socialization among the staff, but it was less general and pronounced.
If you ever meet someone with one arm conspicuously bigger than the other, ask them whether they work in ice cream. We would dig down into those ten-gallon tubs, and sometimes the product was pretty frozen. The scoops were mostly, but not entirely, guys. It was fun making sundaes for friends or family, and giving them more than their money's worth.
I developed a lasting crush on a waitress, Sherry. She was in her twenties and engaged, and out of my league i suppose, but it was dreamlike just to be near her. She was beautiful, and though she didn't parade it, achingly sexy. She treated me with a touch of playful affection...and i'm pretty sure that when we parted over a year later, she gave me the tiniest moment of "if only our timing had been...". I'm not even entirely sure it happened, because it was so unexpected and so far out of the bounds of reality that it seemed a dream even as it was happening. I remember seeing a picture of her fiance a few years later, on the manager's section of the wall in a lumber store in New Jersey. I had met him a few times, and i couldn't not like him. I wanted to be happy for her, but inside my heart could only wish that i were the one giving her the world.
My other favorite waitresses were a mom and her daughter, Tammy. They were always fun. Tammy was engaged to Dave, one of my managers. He had faintly purple hair, but he somehow managed to look conservative. He was funny and easygoing, one of the best bosses i've ever had. He also opened up a tiny moment of humanity to me, when he and Tammy left the store. He told me that the ribbing he got from everyone, for his weight perhaps, bothered him deep down. I was taken aback because i had done it too, and the fact that he opened up to me, when i was little more than a kid...i was at once touched and embarrassed, and i'm pretty sure my attitudes about picking on someone, even good-naturedly, were forever changed by the experience.
The greatest moment of excitement i had there was when the hot fudge exploded on me. When the dispenser sat unused, the fudge in the spigot would cool and harden. It would then clog, of course, but if you pushed the pump hard enough, you could usually get it flowing again. One night i pushed on a clogged spigot, but it was too far gone. I tried more force, and BOOM, the one-inch metal cap on the spigot dislodged, spraying a pressurized torrent of scalding fudge. Fortune was with me, as i took it in the torso, and almost none of it on my face and arms. Even through polyester and a T-shirt i got slightly burned, but i was laughing right away. Don't tell me scooping isn't extreme.
After Dave and Tammy and Sherry were gone, a lot of the magic was too. I stayed at Friendly's for two summers. It was fun and comfortable. I got a couple raises, finishing at maybe $3.65. At first Mom or Dad drove me, and i eventually got rides from co-workers, too. My second summer, new license in hand, i occasionally drove myself and was able to offer co-workers a lift. One time i gave Sherry a ride home. I haven't thought about that moment in many years, but the feeling of being so close to her...of feeling her energy and warmth near me, even after she was gone...it's very possible that that drive was the sweetest of my life.