America: 50☆Stars (Vol. 1)

Episode 48: Some Ice Cream Stories

Summer 1904 ~ St. Louis, Missouri

It turned out Illinois got the last laugh.

Missouri made the mistake of tackling two summer jobs at once: the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (aka the St. Louis World's Fair) and the Summer Olympics. She painfully recalled herself bullying Illinois into letting her oversee the Summer Olympics, telling him he had no right to overshadow the international fair. Things went her way, and she held the distinguished honor of hosting two international events at once.

But as it turned out, it was a lot of work for one event. For two, it was insufferable labor 24/7.

"Why did I ever agreed to do this?" Missouri cried as she sat in an ice cream booth in a sweaty mess. "This is horrible. Just... awful!"

"Hey! Is anyone there?" said a man with a French accent.

She quickly wiped her eyes and stood up to serve her next customer. "Y-Yes! What could I... France, what are you doing here?" She stared at the Frenchman, mouth agape.

"Like every tourist here, mademoiselle. I'm here for the Olympics and the World's Fair." He smiled. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief. "How do you bare with this climate? If I had my way, I would've stripped down to my socks days ago!"

She softly smiled. "It's not so bad. It could've been worst."

He heaved a sigh. "Mind fetching moi (me) some ice cream?"

She nodded. "Coming right up!" She headed over to the ice box.

Her hand reached over to grab a paper cup, only to grab air instead. 'Crap... I guess I should start refilling the stack. There should be some extras somewhere...' She checked every box and cabinet in her tiny booth, finding no success. '... Well, fuck...' She started to panic. 'I can't disappoint, France. I can't embarrass, America! There's gotta be a cup somewhere...' She looked around the booth again.

"Here is your waffle, ma'am!" said the waffle vendor next door.

Missouri's ears perked up, and a brilliant idea popped into her head. "Mr. Hamwi!" She rushed over to their booth. "I want to buy some of your waffles please!"

Less than five minutes later, France happily got his vanilla ice cream in a waffle cone.

Since that hot afternoon, Missouri would always have a stack of waffles to make into cones to hold her ice cream in. Everyone loved the ice cream cones whenever they bought ice cream from her booth. By the end of summer, she made a great profit to buy herself some vacation time. No doubt, she deserved it.

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Summer 1987 ~ Burlington, Vermont

It seemed so long ago, yet a decade had passed since Ben & Jerry's started as a humble ice cream parlor. Nowadays, they were quickly gaining a following in the New England region. They recently introduced Cherry Garcia as a flavor, and everyone loved it. Cherry Garcia and many flavors of ice cream were selling like crazy. It was awesome!

What wasn't awesome was thousands gallons of ice cream waste left behind after production.

Vermont sighed after hanging up the office phone. "Good news and bad news."

Ben Cohen frowned. "Good news?"

"Some of the sewer plants are willing to take on some of the ice cream waste."

"And bad news?" Jerry Greenfield questioned.

"Only some of them are willing. The rest refuse to take a single drop, citing concerns of the smell and the capacity of their faculties." He frowned. "While we're able to get rid of some of the ice cream waste, we're still left with many gallons left over."