Soft Serve Ice Cream

I grew up in Western Massachusetts.  Massachusetts has a wonderful history of ice cream:  Howard Johnson's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Johnson's was known for their 28 flavors.  Friendly's http://www.friendlys.com/ was another chain that featured ice cream as well as other foods.  There were many local producers of ice cream, including chain convenient stores, such as Cumberland Farms. http://www.cumberlandfarms.com/.   As time passed, there were even more exquisite producers of ice cream, such as Ben and Jerry's http://www.benjerry.com/, the Edys brand http://www.dreyers.com/main/index.asp?b=105, or or the commercial  kinds found in grocery stores.

We had soft serve ice cream. There were many individually owned stands that were open in the summer only.  Some were just for ice cream.  Some expanded to serving hot dogs, hamburgers and subway sandwiches. We had Dairy Queens, also, but mostly they were open in the summer.  They were called Braziers Dairy Queens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_Queen#Dairy_Queen_Brazier.  I loved soft serve ice cream.

Imagine my delight when I moved to Texas and I discovered that Dairy Queens www.dairyqueen.com/us-en/ are widespread in West Texas, and are opened all year round. My first job in Texas had me driving all over West Texas, and lo and behold, Dairy Queens were often found in these little towns, long before McDonald's http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/home.html or Burger King http://www.bk.com/ made it there. 
 
I do not eat much ice cream any more. But I still love soft serve ice cream.