If you’ve ever been to Yakima, Washington, you may or may not know about Ron’s Drive-In at 16th and. . .uhh. . .Lincoln.

My family moved to Yakima in 1971 from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Suffice it to say that I still wonder why we ever moved. If I’d had any say, I would have happily chosen to stay in Cambridge, rather than a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, but whatever. It’s all water under the proverbial bridge, and I have a really good life now, in Portland, so it all works out.

I know, I know. All my Yakima stories start that way. And this post started out as a witty, insightful memoir! Le Sigh.

So anyway, Ron’s Drive-In. They were famous for chocolate and vanilla swirl ice-cream cones, so one hot summer day while my brother and I were driving around, and we stopped at the traffic light in front of Ron’s, we looked up to read their rotating sign. It said,

“HAVE YOU HAD YOUR 1 AND 1 TODAY?”

Then there was a space, and two 2’s almost underneath the 1’s. We sat at the light, confused, reading aloud, trying to work out what it said.

“Have you had your. . .one and one, two and two. . .one-two and one-two. . .one-over-two, one-over-tw–ohhh. Half and half!” I wish I could excuse our ignorance by telling you that we were too young to know any better, but in all honesty I can’t. I was in high school and my brother was in junior high.

Boy, did we feel intelligent that day.