2009 has been the Year of the Non-Summer.
Record-setting rain, temperature dips, and more staycations than vacations damped the mood of a state that usually greets summer with the enthusiasm of a dog recently let off of his leash. I’m not immune to it. I love summer with dog-off-the-leash enthusiasm and am usually so stoked with the calendar date that I’ll take whatever it brings – bug bites, stifling heat, even the occasional rainout. But this year, the weather was so stubbornly rainy that I felt like I was waiting for a cold to clear up. I felt like that for May, June, and half of July.
I felt much better once the weather finally got on some antidepressants, but some aspects of the non-summer still hung around. For the first time in 20 years, my family didn’t take its annual trip to a lake in New Hampshire. Also for the first time in 20 years, I don’t know what I’m doing after the summer. A dog might not be so ecstatic to run circles if he knew he’d never be on the leash again. Logically I know I’ll have a job sooner than later, but the deadline on my carefree state isn’t looming like it usually is. The leash isn’t in sight, so I’m not running crazy circles…I’m trotting lazily beside my owner.
With so many hallmarks of summer melted by the weeks of rain, I was grateful to be invited to my college roommate Julia’s [gorgeous, huge] house on Cape Cod. In addition to the fact that her house is like something out of a magazine and her parents are incredible hosts, it felt really good to put something on the calendar that would afford me an opportunity to do many classically-summer things. Julia’s house is perfect for that. We can fall asleep to the sound of waves, walk to the beach, drink g&t’s on the porch, eat seafood, and get ice cream at Four Seas before passing out in the sunburned, happy haze unique to beach weekends.
We did all of those summery things not once, but twice. Twice! My summer-starved self feasted on the repetition. On Saturday night, we went to Four Seas after dinner and before porch drinks. I love going to Four Seas not only because the ice cream has an airy consistency I can’t seem to find anywhere else, but also because when I’m there, I know I’m on Cape Cod. And if I’m on Cape Cod, chances are that I’m doing something lazy and enjoyable, and that I’m feeling lucky just to be there. I wish I could say that this place is a hidden gem, but it’s absolutely not. It’s so popular it borders on tourist-trap, but Four Seas is so earnest and old school that it escapes that dubious title. Instead, I’ll leave it classified as really popular. Really, really popular – which you will realize as soon as you drive up and notice that the place has not one, not two, but three dirt parking lots. It’s like parking at the Abington town fireworks (South Shore kids – you know). I half expected someone to be taking $10 bills for spots on their front lawn. A shuttle bus wouldn’t have surprised me, though I didn’t see one. Notably, a shuttle bus on Cape Cod would undoubtedly be something adorable and foot-powered, probably by a fresh-faced college kid wearing pink shorts.
Well actually, the quest to get to the actual ice cream counter wasn’t over once we got a parking spot 3.5 miles away, because then we had to get in line. This line was 1.7 miles long. There were more people in this line than there were in my graduation procession. If Four Seas had a box office, it would’ve been the top-grossing movie of the weekend. I think Four Seas is fine with the line, though, because it gives their customers more time to consider buying a t-shirt, baseball cap, or golf shirt. Though I am not usually a fan of the “wearing t-shirts of the food that I eat” look, the grey Four Seas t-shirt has been a serious temptation every time I’ve gone there. Let that be a testament to how much I love their ice cream.
Finally, we approached the single-story shack that is Four Seas. The walls inside are covered in newspaper stories about the ice cream’s awards and reputation, and since the walls are pretty much the only thing you can see in the densely-packed crowd, I couldn’t take much else away from the ambience. In a non-specific way, I could also tell that the interior hasn’t been updated since well before my birth. There are mini-stools in front of the low ice cream counter, upon which you can presumably sit with your adorable and genial grandfather. I can’t imagine when the place is empty enough to do that, though. Maybe when it first opens – which, by the way, is 11 a.m. Mythical genial grandfathers are the type to let you eat ice cream for lunch, so I won’t totally rule it out, but I have a hunch the stools are responsible for far more whacked shins and stubbed toes than modern-day Normal Rockwell moments.
When I finally was able to meet the eye of destiny/my scooper, I went for a scoop of peppermint stick and a scoop of mocha chip. They were both good, but I can’t figure out what I was thinking in combining those two flavors. Who do I think I am, Starbucks? Taken individually, both scoops has the airy consistency that I love about Four Seas. The mocha chip could’ve used a little more oomph, but I don’t really go to Four Seas for punchy flavors. I go to Four Seas for its whipped consistency and freshness, and for the feeling I get when I’m there – that no matter the rain, no matter the weather; summer is here and I am taking advantage of it.
These people are in line for Four Seas. They are in Wareham.
Hark!
[...] that I soon forgot about them, anyway. Its texture was perfect – not whipped, like Farfar’s or 4 Seas – but not so dense as the Ben and Jerry’s that subconsciously inspired me. [...]