August 6th, 2011: Root Beer Float Day
Food of the Day For A Year Goal
Day: #31

After Friday’s International Beer-Oyster Day, I was thrilled to see root beer floats show up on our Food-of-The-Day calendar.

I just love root beer floats and drink them every day during the summer cocktail hour. Okay, once in a great while, I have been known to have one before 8am, but on those days, 8am usually feels like 5pm.

Root Beer Float Day was celebrated with an afternoon root beer float from Tasty Freeze and a home-made root beer float after dinner out on my patio. I felt I had to have two. It just seemed to be the right thing to do.

On the way to the Tasty Freeze, Cole and I made a wrong turn and ended up in a pretty rough part of Chicago. The sidewalks were filled with young moms carrying a baby on each hip, blaring music, obvious drug dealers, a man pushing a kid out of a packaged goods store with a baseball bat and a couple making out in the middle of an intersection (cars drove around them). It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, and sass and attitude were everywhere.

I wasn’t really afraid, but when I passed a Dollar Store advertising a sale, I did not suggest we park and shop.

Cole, however, was fascinated by the atmosphere and culture.

When we stopped at a red light, I was looking forward, waiting for the light to change and talking about life consequences and circumstances while, unbeknownst to me, an African American hooker dressed in just enough to make you wonder if she was wearing anything at all pretended to solicit Cole.

I caught the action just as we pulled away. Cole turned to me and said, “You mean, if I don’t work hard in school, I could grow up to be a black hooker?”

I just hate kids. Don’t you?

In spite of his sassy mouth, I bought the kid a Tasty Freeze root beer float and a corn dog.

Emily had a root beer float party complete with colored straws. Her gang plus some others are celebrating on the porch in the picture up above. It’s such a light-hearted picture of summer: kids hanging out on a front porch in the afternoon, drinking root beer floats with colored straws.

Here is a picture Sendie Lou sent of her little girl celebrating Root Beer Float Day.

As I sipped my second root beer float of the day and watched Cole entertain me on the trampoline,

I thought back to the wrong turn Cole and I made on the way to the Tasty Freeze. I thought about how very fortunate we are to be able to give our children the simple pleasure of a root beer float with a pink straw.

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Odd Loves Company!