Make Me A Malted

As an 8 year old my dreams were incredible, unpredictable and prosaic.

There was the Lone Ranger, followed by airplanes, the Brooklyn Dodgers,

years of academic truancy and a life, not quite complete, that has been filled with stupendous acts of stupidity and remarkable moments of joy.

I was ten when, on my way home from a softball game I stopped for a malted. Malts had become part of my Saturday morning ritual. Win or lose a chocolate shake was mandatory. Sitting on the third swivel stool past the cash register I probably considered the homework I would not do, but only after analyzing both my offensive and defensive play. No errors and a very favorable bounce to put the last out within one step of second base. At bat, one single and a walk in five at-bats; a marginally ok 40% on base percent.

Norm, the owner of the candy store, knew my order and had good news to share. This was going to be the final malted made with the last remnants of the gallon of chocolate ice cream. According to Norm the combination of ice particles that had settle in the container, and ice cream created the very best possible malted. He was right!

That incident made a lasting impression, both as a line of Jewish humor, (“make me a malted” ) was often followed ‘by pfff, you’re a malted) and a way of notching an imaginary belt when something beyond my expectations came up, like a 7 on a role of the dice.