The Simple Pleasure of a Snowball — It’s a Baltimore Thing
June 21, 2009
By Suzanne Molino Singleton
Photography by Becca Fox
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A simple pleasure of spring is spotting the snowball stand’s hinged door propped wide for the first time. Swerving your car quickly into the parking lot and scampering out to attack a cup of your favorite flavor may not win a kind remark from Miss Manners, but tasting that initial spoonful of chocolate — or sky blue, blood orange, lemon-lime — with a dab of marshmallow cancels that concern.
Marshmallow costs extra, but who cares about that either?
As I exited Cockeysville’s “Snoasis” deck juggling three snowballs, a guy holding a kiddie cup for his little girl who was bored with the let’s-get-a-snowball adventure, asked, “What’s that sauce on top?”
Sauce?
“You’re not from Baltimore, are you,” I said blandly. It wasn’t a question, it was an accusation.
“No,” he answered.
“Figured that,” I said. “It’s marshmallow! And it’s a must.”
The guy got back in line. I didn’t look back to see why, intent as I was on sticking my face back into my cup of flavored ice, scraping the inside clean of the white gooey topping which reminds me of growing up in Dundalk and Perry Hall.
Snowballs — it’s a Baltimore thing. Not sno-cones — that’s a carnival thing.
Probably all of us Baltimoreans can weave a snowball tale, recalling the stands and trucks where we acquired the cool-off treats in our various neighborhoods.
Remember the snowball trucks which drove street to street while you played outside? You and your pals scattered like a handful of dropped jacks to run home in that small window of opportunity — while the snowball truck drove slowly enough to catch — to ask Mama or Daddy for 50 cents.
If Grandma was around, you had it made. She’d fetch coins faster than Mom could say, “No, it will spoil your dinner.”
Before moving out of our Dundalk neighborhood at age 8, my siblings and I begged and coaxed quarters and nickels from the pockets of our parents, who allowed us to walk alone down our road and around the corner a few blocks to neighbor lady’s house. She owned what I thought was the coolest snowball stand ever in the basement of her house. If it had a name my memory fails the recall test.
Our eyes took a minute to adjust to the dimness but we could still make out the forms of glass jars of penny candy which lined the left wall. Our young mouths watered for the extra treats we weren’t always allowed to buy. We were there for the snowballs.
This was in the 1960s when the method of building a snowball meant the neighbor lady hand-shaved a huge block of ice with a funny-looking metal thing. It had to be the only time we were patient as kids.
The day Dad banned us from patronizing her business again was the day he stopped for a snowball himself after a laborious hot day laying bricks, and witnessed her stop shaving, reach down to remove a dirty shoe, scratch her foot, then resume touching the ice with bare hands.
Sorry Molino kids, no more snowballs from whatever that place was called. We were inconsolable.
Fitting that some years later my entrepreneurial-brained big brother began “Mr. Penguin’s Sno-Balls,” a five-truck, four-year summer operation out of a green barn when Perry Hall was more farmland than townhomes.
Not sure what my parents were thinking, allowing their 17-year-old daughter to drive one of the trucks into Baltimore City as an employee, but it was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had.
Here comes the Snowball Queen, ringing her bell with her right hand, steering that big red truck with her left, trying not to run over little kids scampering across the street to beg for coins, and battling a myriad of bees, constant companions throughout humid Baltimore days.
The biggest perk of the job was all the free snowballs I desired, spooning them into my thirsty mouth – as long as I brought my own plastic cup. Although money was pretty good for the time, my brother counted every last cup to ensure his drivers weren’t robbing his icy profits. Some did anyhow.
Snowball stomach aches were so worth it. By day’s end, I had metamorphosed into a sugary, sticky, marshmallow mess by the time I parked the truck each evening at snowball headquarters, the sun having just set, its orange-ish disk simulating the color of egg custard.
Snowballs were once known as “the hard-times sundae” during the depression when they sold for a penny. We’ve come a long, syrupy way, baby.
Coins aren’t enough nowadays to buy much at a snowball stand — maybe an extra dollop of marshmallow, or a tip in the server’s cup. I happened to drop $9 for those three aforementioned cups of ice covered in flavor — without ordering any ‘premium’ flavors!
Inflation catches everything eventually. Still, a pricey snowball will never prevent me from the ritual of stopping for one.
It’s a Baltimore thing, and a flavorful one at that — with marshmallow — naturally.
Baltimorean Suzanne Molino Singleton is a freelance columnist here and on www.examiner.com and www.yesnetwork.com (Mrs. Singy: Married to Baseball), and is the creator of the weekly inspirational e-column SNIPPETS (www.snippetsinspiration.com). When not writing, she plays house with sports celeb Ken Singleton and their dependents. suza...@snippetsinspiration.com
