boyhood sketch 18.SECOND CONE

R. to L. Murray, Dad & Me

My father loved ice cream, not inordinately, merely a great deal. When I was a child, an ice cream cone was a rare treat. My father never had a lot of discretionary cash in pocket. Times were difficult for a factory laborer. Dad share his ice cream pleasure with whomever was with him. One night Dad and I had walked uptown to St. Paul Street for an ice cream cone, ten cents, two scoops. Two blocks away from the store I was still savouring the remaining scoop when my dad, his cone already gone, stopped, looked at me and said, "that tastes like more. What do you think?" I responded as enthusiastically as I could to cover my surprise. We turned and I hurriedly finished my cone. We arrived at the ice cream store to a smiling ice cream shop owner. Dad said, "We will each have another cone." As the years went by ice cream was increasingly present. My mother worked at Avondale Dairy, which to everyone in the Niagara area was a go to place for cones and sundaes and shakes. As grandchildren came along, he loved to treat them. Following his death at age 93, my brother Murray suggested that his three sons and their families in Ontario and British Columbia, honour Dad’s birthday and memory each March 8th, with an Ice Cream Cone Day. In B.C. the practice is dessert before main course, and with several tubs of flavours, as many cones as you like is the rule. Grandchildren who never met Dad, love him.

IT'S ICE CREAM CONE DAY FOR THE UNRUH CLAN

We eat cones of ice cream on March 8 each year in tribute to my father. My brother Murray began this tradition a few years ago.

Ed Unruh loved ice cream. I was ten years old when he took me to a junior hockey game. On our walk home we stopped in at an ice cream parlour and he bought us each a cone. We had no sooner reached the corner of the block when he was finished his cone, looked at me and said, "That cone tastes like more," so we turned around and went back for a second cone. So we emphasize more. Kids can dip their own, and more than one.

He loved Ice Cream. It was an inexpensive treat in the old days. A triple scoop cost .25, yes, twenty-five cents. My mom worked the counter at Avondale Dairy one year which served the family well. Into his senior years when we visited one another and we were en route anywhere, ice cream signage caught his attention, and he would suggest that we stop. No one objected.

Edward Richard Unruh was my dad. Born to immigrant Mennonite refugees from Crimea, Ukraine in 1915 and bestowed with English given names to mark his new homeland.  Proudly Canadian, in 1942 my father enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force while living within a pacifist culture. I was an infant. He and mom raised three of us, all sons. He had acquired a grade eleven education but no skilled trade. He earned a living using his body. He was 5 feet six inches in height but in his youth and into his forties he was a strong man. After his post WWII departure from the prairies, he found employment in Ontario factories, staying with one company for well over forty years until his retirement. He worked on an assembly line at Anthes Imperial building furnaces in St. Catharines. His three sons grew up, received educations and were able to move forward. At about his forty year mark in the company, we three asked him, "Dad, why did you stay there doing that hard work for all those years?" His reply was, "I did it for my boys." He aspired to little more than being a good man, a good husband, a good father, a good worker and a good friend. He was a man with a simple faith in God. He read the Bible. He trusted preachers. He raised three boys who became preachers/missionaries. He loved us, and he loved our wives and he loved our children, and he loved his great-grandchildren.  His legacy entails far more than a love for ice cream.

ANNUAL ICE CREAM CONE DAY

It was Saturday March 8th and once again it was Ice Cream Cone Day for our family. Each year for the past few years we have celebrated the birthday of my father, Edward Richard Unruh, born March 8th 1915 and who passed away in 2008. When I was a boy one of the biggest treats dad could give us was a stop at the Ice Cream parlour. We thought he was doing it for us but as we grew older we realized that ice cream was one of his favourite foods. I was a nine year old walking with him, each with a cone in hand, and as we turned a corner several blocks away from the ice cream shop, he said, "that tasted like more." So we turned around and went back for a second. Those little pleasures were infrequent in those days, but memorable. As a senior he could be driving in a car with us and spot an ice cream sign and clearly indicate that he thought it was time to stop for a treat. Our family of eleven here in B.C. celebrate the day. I know in other years my brothers in Ontario have done the same.

This past Saturday, we met at our home, with several ice cream flavours and cones ready, and the understanding that you could have as many cones as you could eat. It doesn't get crazy, just fun. So, dessert first, then pizza, and a little while later, dessert again.   Thanks Dad.