We Spent Warm Summer Days Wishing They Would Never End

The temperatures are finally starting to rise here in NYC and that was ushered in with one thing: Fla-Vor-Ice.

I have had my fair share of Popsicles growing up but I never really had flavor ices until my friends moved into their first apartment on A and 10th. This place was amazing and I have a lot of fun memories associated with it. It was spacious, the floors were (slightly warped) hardwood, rooftop access, and no AC. At the top of a 5 story walk up. When it's like 190 degrees outside and you climb that many flights of stairs, you want something cold, sweet, and brightly colored. We spent late summer nights surrounded with discarded cellophane tubes and video game controllers. My favorite thing about flavor ice is that, like so many processed foods, they are just colors not flavors: "I want a blue one" never "I hate lime"

And while I always remember cold, clear winter nights and the walk to and fro their apartment listening to Band of Horses, Flavor Ice is still my first association with their old place. And summers in NYC. The first, but certainly not the last.

In the words of the greatest cartoon character to ever see print:
"It isn't summer if your tongue isn't purple"
--Calvin, Calvin and Hobbes