SUMMERTIME TRADITION: Cool treats cap off games

News

July 2, 2015 - 12:00 AM

For as long as anyone can recall, Iola’s rec league baseball and softball players have collected on the curb outside Dairy Queen after games to enact a local tradition. They grip their cones or cups in one hand and tug furiously on the air with the other — a gesture urging cars on State Street to sound their horns. When the mix of kids to cars is right, the warm evening air at the corner of Neosho and State condenses with the noise of horns and excited cheers….
“Will Talkington! This side of the grass,” shouted his mother, as her bright-eyed son inched closer to the passing traffic. “Just because you’re 9 doesn’t mean you can stand in the grass. Double digits,” she reminded, hinting playfully at the riches that will greet Will when he’s 10.
Faith Warden wore the only yellow shirt among the crowd of kids. The rest of her team had gone home. Faith was the holdout. Faith had energy to burn. She didn’t want to go home. Faith’s mother, on the other hand, was very eager to go home. “But you’re the last yellow here,” she said, urging her daughter to call it a night.
“Well, then I’m just going to faint,” said Faith Warden — and then she did, in perfect mock-fashion, going weak at the knees and collapsing into a puddle beside one of the picnic tables.
Two local reporters stood like Gullivers among the ferment of kids. Landon Weide approached the ungainly pair and pointed to the one with a camera, the other with a notepad. “What’s all this for?”
Inside the Dairy Queen, shift leader Alexis Hobbs, 19, in her blue shirt and black visor, peered out through the small walk-up window, collecting orders from the kids and coaches lined up outside. Summers look different on the other side of the glass. Hobbs was once one of those little girls, a T-ball player, a 5-year-old waving to the passing cars. “It was a long time ago,” remembered Hobbs.
Most of the kids who turn up are still too young to be embarrassed by their parents. One girl waved her ice cream in front of her mom’s face until her mom relented and took a bite. “It’s the best, isn’t it?” said the girl.
As the Gullivers stalked off to their separate cars, Faith Warden’s patient, saintly mother could still be heard trying to lure her daughter away from the Dairy Queen. “Hey,” she called out, “how about we go tell grandma how good you did? Please.”

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