Grandma’s Peach Ice Cream on the Porch

The Fourth came up clear and hot, without a cloud and without a breath of wind.

By nine in the morning it was already eighty degrees, and the flags on Main Street hung straight down from the light poles.

My husband backed the truck up to Grandma’s walk at eight thirty and started unloading ice.

My dad came over to help him carry the stock tank around to the side of the porch where it would stay in the shade.

We set a long plank table along the porch rail and lined the cranks down it, four in a row and two more at the far end. Grandma’s own crank went nearest her rocker.

I hung little flags on the porch rail, the kind you buy in a bundle of twelve at the dollar store.

Across the street, in the park, the committee was setting up. Men were hauling picnic tables into rows.

Somebody was testing the speakers on the bandstand. The smoke from the pork chop grill was already drifting our way.

Grandma came out at ten in her blue gingham blouse, the one she wears for every picnic, and her good white sneakers.

Her white hair was pinned up off her neck. She sat in her rocker like a queen taking her seat.

“Is it too much, Grandma?” I asked one more time, very low. “You can sit inside by the fan and tell me what to do. I won’t mind.”

“I’ll sit right here,” she said. “I’ve sat right here for 52 years. I’m not about to miss the best part.”

I had my auburn hair in a ponytail and my oldest red T-shirt, jean shorts and flip-flops on, because rock salt eats anything nice.

I started pouring the first batch of mix into Grandma’s can while my husband cracked ice with a mallet.

There is a way to do it. You set the metal can in the bucket, put the dasher inside, fill the can two-thirds with mix, and lock the gear on top.

Then you pack ice around the can, then a layer of rock salt, then more ice, then more salt.

The salt makes the ice colder than ice can be on its own. That is what freezes the cream.

Grandma explained this to me when I was six, and she explained it again to every child who came up the walk that day.

The first children showed up before we were even ready.

Two little girls in matching star shirts stood at the bottom of the steps holding hands, staring at the row of cranks like they were rides at the fair.

“Can we turn it?” one of them asked.

“You surely can,” Grandma said from her rocker. “Slow and steady. Let the cream do the work. If you go fast, you’ll wear yourself out and you’ll make it grainy.”

The girls took a handle each. Then a boy came. Then his brother.

Then a grandfather with three grandkids who had driven in from Ohio for the weekend and heard from somebody at the gas station.

By eleven thirty, all six cranks were turning. By noon, there was a line of kids down the porch steps and along the front walk. By twelve thirty, it reached the sidewalk.