One of the best things about Manteca can be found in Spreckels Park on DuPont Court— the nearly 30,000- square-foot refrigerated distribution center for Dreyer’s Ice Cream.
How can you beat knowing there is heaven on earth and it’s less than a mile from my front door?
To say I have a soft spot in my heart — and plenty of space in my stomach — for ice cream is an understatement for the ages. And when it comes to ice cream nothing beats Dreyer’s.
I don’t dare keep it in the house although I have had the discipline to buy two half gallons when they were on sale at Food-4-Less and stash one untouched for a week in my freezer.
My current Kryptonite is Drumstick Ice Cream Sundae. It has become a weekly Saturday evening ritual either after giving platelets or hiking. I buy my predictable healthy selections at Food 4 Less and then with a slight — only slight, mind you — tinge of guilt I grab a half gallon of Dreyer’s Drumstick Ice Cream before heading to the checkout.
One time a guy who recognized me from my mug in the paper looked at everything I was placing on the conveyor belt from my cart when he suddenly spoke up. He couldn’t believe I was buying ice cream after everything he’d read. What can I say —man can live by yogurt, almonds, salad, veggie burgers, cottage cheese, apples, oranges, bananas, and veggies six days a week but he’s got to get wild on Saturdays.
How bad is my “sin” of indulging in ice cream? I will turn on “Major Crimes”, “Madame Secretary” or “Law & Order” when the sun goes down on a Saturday, grab the Dreyer’s Drumstick ice cream from the freezer, get a spoon (no dish necessary), and then plop down on the couch. Once I take the top off the ice cream — every one of the 2,200 heavenly calories packed inside — is gone in 20 minutes.
What I’m doing now on Saturdays is downright restrained compared to when I was 32, weighed 190 pounds and was literally racking up 10,000 miles plus a year riding a racing bicycle all over Northern California.
I marked the week leading up to my 32nd birthday by taking time off and pedaling between 105 and 140 miles per day five days in a row from my home in Lincoln. Each night after carbo loading for the next day I polished off a half gallon of Crystal Ice Cream. My big weakness then was marble fudge and Neapolitan. At week’s end I had logged 687 miles, eaten 2.5 gallons of ice cream, and lost four pounds. I was in heaven. I had found a way to indulge in ice cream and still lose weight.
My weakness for ice cream started young thanks to Mom.
While growing up as a kid during the Depression on a working cattle ranch in the foothills of Nevada County east of where Beale Air Force is today, one of the few treats her mother was able to pull off was homemade ice cream.
That got Mom hooked on homemade cream with maple nut being her favorite although she made a mean vanilla, pineapple, and peach as well.
She entrusted me at the ripe old age of 6 to weld an ice pick after I was able to finally see what I was doing thanks to eye glasses.
Back in 1963 before stores carried crushed ice, making ice cream required going to Lincoln Ice & Beverage, putting a quarter in the slot and shoving it in so a 25-pound block of ice would plop out wrapped in twine so you could lift it up and put it in your car. The block was 11-inches by 11-inches by 8-inches. It was pure bliss to put your hand on it during the ride home especially on a 100-degree day in a 1957 Chevy station wagon that had manual air conditioning requiring you to roll down all four windows.
My job was to chip away at the ice block with the pick so the ice would be in small enough chunks to pack in the bucket around the metal containers that mom filled with a mixture of condensed milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, and whatever she needed for flavor such as pineapple. The ice was then sprinkled with rock salt to keep it cold.
The cutting edge technology back then was an electric motor that replaced the hand crank.
I was then assigned the task of clearing up ice jams that would periodically stop the container from turning as well as add ice as needed.
The grinding noise of the motor was music to my ears. It seemed like the process took hours but I didn’t care.
My reward was licking the ice cream from the “dasher” that slowly churned the freezer mixture into ice cream after most of the six quart effort was poured into containers for freezing.
Virtually every holiday relatives begged Verna to make ice cream and she obliged them most of the time.
While homemade ice cream was a treat, mom would buy two half gallons a week for the house with Crystal being her favorite.
My sister Mary when she was younger was antsy for ice cream one evening and uttered the words that we used for years whenever were gathered at home at night and were in the mood to satisfy our sweet tooth: “I hear the ice cream calling.”
It’s Saturday and I can hear the Dreyer’s Drumstick Sundae Ice Cream calling.



This column is the opinion of executive editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Bulletin or Morris Newspaper Corp. of CA.  He can be contacted at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com or 209.249.3519.