Physical Address
North California Coast
United States
Recently while doing some genealogy research, I tumbled down a rabbit hole into memories of a favorite Ames, Iowa landmark. For my generation, Boyd’s Dairy holds a special place in our hearts. Boyd’s sat on corner of Main Street and Duff Avenue, and was within walking distance for me and my mom. I consulted the internet to see if it even exists anymore. It doesn’t – closed in 1986, a year after I graduated college.
We were poor; trips to restaurants, ice cream parlors, or even to get fast food were reserved for very special occasions, and Boyd’s certainly fit into that. With it’s huge cow sign and unusual flavors, Boyd’s was a full service dairy and was one of the last to get rid of glass bottles. According to an article written for the Iowa Historical Society, it was so much more than an ice cream store. The history includes the mention that Boyd’s invented bubble gum ice cream, something I didn’t know.
My own memories start with the ice cream. My mother loved it. If asked what her favorite thing in the world was, the answer was always a banana split from Boyd’s. They came in a bright blue plastic boat with 3 scoops of ice cream, 3 toppings and lots of whip, nuts and cherries. Given the state of our finances, she was unable to have even that small pleasure more than once every few months.
The year that I turned 7, my mother planned my golden birthday. Your golden birthday is the day you turn the age that matches your birthday date. I was born on the 7th, therefore, my golden birthday was age 7. I never had parties for my birthday, but my mom decided early on that I was going to have one that year.
The main event of the party was to be our own special banana split and somehow, in spite of our poverty, she managed to splurge on enough ice cream, sprinkles, toppings, cherries and whip cream for 7 little girls to make their very own banana split, a treat that was too expensive for me to ever have at Boyd’s.
I have such wonderful, if vague, memories of that party. My cousins, neighborhood girls and myself, all dressed in our party dresses, playing party games and then creating ice cream magic that included THREE scoops of ice cream with any toppings I wanted.
Looking back through the lens of an adult, I imagine that there was a bit of self interest in deciding to make banana splits the center piece. My mom needed at least 8 (honestly probably a few more) of the blue boats for my party. What a wonderful reason to indulge trips to Boyd’s that year. In creating a memorable party for me, she could justify a few more trips in order to get the boats. A monthly trip to the ice cream parlor in service of building a great party for me was frugal as well as fun.
After my mom died and I moved to Hubbard, Boyd’s wasn’t a part of my life again until my high school graduation. In its offerings was a blue punch that the moms in our family used for special occasions. It came in big plastic bottles (5 gal?) as a frozen slush that we kept in the freezer until the party.
To make it, you added lemon lime soda with the blue slush and combined them in a punch bowl. We had it at my graduation, and also at my bridal shower. In writing this article, I checked in with a cousin about it and she said that she seemed to recall some in their freezer at some point.
This post was inspired by a post by Lori Olson White, “Pillow Mints and Roses”. I enjoy her writing immensely, and encourage you to check her out if you haven’t already!
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