When Snow Cones Go Bad

There are so many wonderful things about summer time: 

really great weather, 

the beach,….  

Okay, I am lucky enough to live in the beach community of Orange County, California, where we always have those things, pretty much year 'round.  

But in the summer you can add to that long summer evenings and concerts in the park!  I don't think there is anything greater than good music and good company.

We started out the summer concert season with a Motown tribute that was exceptional. 

The next week was an Elvis impersonator that was lots of fun.  He did a lot of getting off the stage and involved with the crowd and had a lot of historical interest and facts woven in and out between songs (while he got back and forth between the crowd and the stage again, primarily.)  

Then last week was my favorite: Desperado; an Eagles performers band.  

They were great, playing all the old Eagles songs from the 70s and 80s. 

But it's something that happened at this week's concert that I want to write about.  And it's not the music.  

I found this week's music to be the least inspiring yet.  

They didn't seem to have a theme - sort of played a little of this and a little of that - and weren't quite the quality of the previous weeks' performers.

Actually, it's something that caught my eye on the way to the restroom….

In the time-honored tradition of all females, I agreed to go with one of the gals through the maze of people sprawled across the expanse of lawn in her trek to the toilet.  

(I know; a man would have just let his buddy fend for himself.  No self-respecting dude would give up his 'man card' to escort his buddy to the john - but just read on and see the opportunity he would have missed out on!)

As my friend and I neared the far edge of the throng and stepped around the last blanket to attain the sidewalk leading up to the building where the restroom was, I saw a rainbow! 

In the middle of the oppressive summer heat.

Now, mind you, we've not had any rain here in southern California in an eon, at least!  But it wasn't that kind of rainbow.   

Nor was I on drugs.

This one was painted down the sidewalk.  Not with paints or sidewalk chalk, but with some poor, undoubtedly heart-broken child's melting snow cone!

I walked my friend up to the building to point out the hallway to the restroom and then made my way back down the sidewalk in amazement, pulling out my phone (and cursing myself for not bringing my camera with me to the park!)

Childhood memories of the very rare occasion of snow cones in our lives flitted across the years.
  
The magical, crystalline, shaved ice…. The choice, oh the choice of flavor (which to this artist's soul, even at that very young age, was driven more by color than taste)….  It was the stuff of childhood dreams!

And here, before me, splattered on the hot, concrete sidewalk where hundreds of dirty feet trod back and forth …to the restroom of all destinations!…lay someone else's dream.

The unfortunate owner of this particular cone hadn't had to choose just one color, like I'd had to decades ago! 

 This lucky soul had had an artist create her (I know it had to be a girl) cold, magical dream, and got them to make it every color of the rainbow.  No settling for this lucky…or in this case, not-so-lucky soul.

With people walking around me on either side, looking at me in the oddest fashion, I squatted on the hot sidewalk trying to memorialize this beautiful tragedy as best I could in the dimming sunlight and falling shadows, before the whole mess just dried up and the colors faded.

It was gloriously hilarious.

It was beautiful.

It was tragic.

It was magical.

It was reverent.

In the few days since I shot this picture, I've shared it with a couple dozen or so friends and have been overwhelmed with the responses.  

My friends at least no longer call me crazy. 

At least not in regards to me photographing oddball things…. 


At least not to my face….  

Some thought the photo was kind of sad.  Most thought it was really cool.  One gal loved it so much she wanted to print it on canvas and hang it on her living room wall.

Yet going a step beyond, I'd like to think a little deeper still, as usual…  

Sure, I was first drawn to the tragedy by the incredible color - every artist's initial lure, I think.

But there is so much more to my brave little snow cone.  

He's such a pillar of inspiration.


Wouldn't it be wonderful if all of us could stay true to our colors like he did, when the heat is on? 

Even if, when we are melting down, we can still be so clearly self-defined and organized.

And I'd like to think that, like the little snow cone, even in my final push, I will run in a straight line like he did, embracing my final charge with my every last ounce of juice.


"For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, 
and the time for my departure is near.  

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."     
                                                                   -- 2 Timothy  4:6,7

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