WRITER’S CORNER The Easter Egg

BY THOMAS BRENNAN

Every year on Easter Sunday morning, Herman’s Ice Cream Parlor raffled off a huge chocolate Easter egg. The ornately crafted egg was prominently displayed in the front window of the store for at least a month with chances costing a quarter. The enticing egg looked exotic in its brightly decorated, shimmery setting. There was a wide opening on its side from which silvery wrapped candies and smaller chocolate bunnies spewed out with bountiful lava like flow offering a candy land bonus of sorts. I never heard of anyone I knew actually winning the prized egg, but the raffle always caused quite a stir in the neighborhood.

There were a number of ice cream parlors in the area, each one having its own loyal teenager customer base, a clique of neighborhood affiliation that was territorial and fervid.

“I hang out in Karp’s,” another ice cream parlor over on Franklin Avenue, or “Newman’s,” on the other side of Prospect Park, someone might say in a manner of introduction that we all understood.

Ice Cream Parlors were still a rite of passage, a haven of refuge, and a comforting place for mingling with friends. It is here where social skills were honed and friendships forged that could sometimes last a lifetime.

The sweet aromatic scent of chocolate and other exotic flavors was pervasive, greeting you as you entered. Everything was home-made.

Herman’s front entrance featured two curved front windows separated by an entry aisle that led to a wide swinging thick glass door in the middle. A worthy consolation prize consisting of a huge chocolate Easter bunny surrounded by brightly colored jelly beans was displayed in the other window.

When I pushed open the door, I stepped into an atmosphere evocative of an era when young teenagers would sit and listen to the juke box while sip- ping on a deliciously cold Vanilla Malted or a tasty Cherry Coke. I may have been part of the last generation to spend their afternoons sitting in a booth with a straw in my hands talking with friends. In later years, I might be found checking out a group of girls in another booth pretending that I didn’t notice them.

A long black and white marble counter top and stools ending at a grill area provided accommodation for the lunch crowd, all of which, including any number of exotic ice cream concoctions similar to those described in a recent edition of Life magazine, lent a hint of mid-western Americana in the enticing array of choices. Even in the early nineteen fifties, Herman’s was referred to as an “old-fashioned” ice cream parlor.

I would go to Herman’s every Friday evening to count my take including tips from my Brooklyn Eagle paper route which invariably came to $13.75. I had developed a ritual of sorts that came immediately after I finished my collection route. I walked over and sat in one tickets to win great donated prizes.

Sponsors for the 2023 All Kids Fair are Saf-T-Swim, Jovia Financial Credit Union, All in 1 SPOT with TheraTalk, Acupuncture Wellness Services, Epic Escape Rooms LI, Clowns.com, Dave & Buster’s, Your Local Kids Source, Blank Slate Media, Litmor Publications/ Garden City News, Long Island Media Group/South Bay’s Neighbor, Herald Community Newspapers, and 516Ads. com/631Ads.com.

Tickets purchased in advance at www.AllKidsFair.com/Tickets are $5 for children ages 2 and up and adults. Tickets purchased at the door are $10 for children ages 2 and up and $5 for adults. Children 1 and younger are admitted at no charge.

Information about the expo is available at www.AllKidsFair.com of Herman’s red tufted booths in the back, rather than sitting on a stool at the counter for my own personal treat: a hot vanilla marshmallow sundae that then cost thirty-five cents. I liked the idea of giving myself a well-earned tasty dessert that took a long time to savor as my reward.

On this Easter Sunday morning I was ten years old, and I wore a light V-neck yellow sweater over a white shirt and tie to Mass that my mother recently bought for my younger brother Martin and me. The reason I remember what I was wearing was that my brother and I were to have our picture taken indoors by my cousin Joseph Kelly, who was coming by later that afternoon with his new camera. Joseph was easy to like with his amiable, soft manner and his warm smile, and so I had a dressed-up Easter Sunday feeling as I came down Sterling Place from the always crowded mass at St. Teresa’s.

Continued on page 7