I was entranced by the article in the April issue on fast food. The beginnings of the phenomenon were seen by all of us, but only a few realized just what was happening.

I grew up in Rock Island, Illinois, and “soft” ice cream was a part of my youth. There were little ice-cream stores dotting the Tri Cities of Rock Island, Moline, and Davenport (across the Mississippi, in Iowa). In the thirties and early forties it was a very cheap date to walk a young lady up to the stand at Sixth and Seventeenth streets in Rock Island and spend a nickel on each of us for a soft cone of vanilla (that was all you could get) and stroll back down the street licking at a great rate so it did not melt all over in the midsummer heat. Maybe it is nostalgia, but 1 seem to recall the cones were huge, and I have not had as good a taste sensation in fifty years. I guess the young lady had something to do with it.