Dairy Queen, just one rite of passage for spring

Editor’s note: Tammy Keith is on vacation. This column was originally published in 2006.

One of my co-workers mentioned Dairy Queen yesterday, and we all practically started drooling on cue.

This co-worker said she’s hot now that spring has arrived, and she’s thinking about ice cream. Plus, she used to work at a Dairy Queen, and she still needs a fix once in a while.

A friend of mine who lives in Michigan said there are two sure ways to tell spring has arrived there.

The Dairy Queen opens, and the peeper frogs come out.

She’s originally from Conway. When she moved to Michigan, she thought people were crazy because as soon as the weather started getting warm, people lined up for miles to get into the Dairy Queen.

Now she’s right there in line with ’em.

Of course, I think living in a town where the Dairy Queen isn’t open year-round is cruel and unusual punishment.

Anyway, I started thinking about how glad I am that spring is here, especially since I have chill bumps until it gets about 70 degrees.

Here are a few things that come to mind for me and my co-workers when I think of signs of spring in Arkansas:

• The beautiful blooming Bradford pear trees, daffodils, dogwoods and azaleas.

• Pollen. One co-worker drove to Vilonia in a silver car and came back in a yellow one.

• Another co-worker said pollen, too. Her elementary-age son likes to draw “pollen monsters” with his little finger on the car windows in the morning, thus making him late to school.

• Golf. (My husband’s contribution. Golf is pretty much his answer for everything.)

• Baseball and March Madness. Yeah, that came from a male in the office.

• That short period of time when we don’t have to pay for heat or air conditioning. (From my husband, whose middle initial is M. It stands for miser.)

• Arguing with my husband about when it’s time to start mowing the yard. (The point being, when I think it’s time, it’s time.)

• Cute spring clothes. Oooh, and new shoes.

• Pedicures and bright polish so I can wear my new sandals.

• Longer days to shop.

• Wearing shorts. (Not me. I stopped doing that years ago. Thank God for capris.)

• Going barefoot.

• College kids studying outside, lounging on blankets and playing Frisbee.

• Rebirth. One young co-worker said her mother died on Easter. She evaluated her life and started over.

• Of course, Easter: church services with precious little girls in their Easter dresses and hats, and boys in their Sunday best; Easter-egg hunts; chocolate rabbits; chocolate-peanut-butter eggs.

• Spring break.

• Toad Suck Daze and all the food: fried Twinkies, chocolate-covered bananas, corn dogs and everything else on a stick.

• Toads, not peeper frogs.

• The annual panic of realizing I’m going to be wearing a bathing suit again and wishing I hadn’t made all those trips to Dairy Queen during the winter.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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