HOT FUDGE SUNDAE

Before I was old enough to work behind the counter at Joe’s Spa I was put to work in the back near the walk in cold storage area. My job was to make the hot fudge topping that the Spa was famous for. My uncle Jim was the expert and it was he that put in the various ingredients. My job was to stir the “pot” (really a huge pickle barrel type container). He would show up at certain intervals and add huge blocks of chocolate, sugars, vanilla and God knows what else. I would start in the early morning hours and finish sometime in mid afternoon. When the product was complete there was enough hot fudge topping to last most of the summer season.

When I graduated to behind the counter I took pride in the various sundaes I dished out to the adults and children that came into the Spa . The banana split was my specialty. A banana split down the middle placed in an elongated dish with two scoops of vanilla ice cream surrounding a scoop of strawberry in the middle. Topping it off was whipped cream , strawberry sauce, chopped nuts and a cherry on top. But back to the hot fudge topping I had labored over in the back.

It was a Sunday when a gentleman had come in and asked a special favor. His wife was quite ill and was lying in a hospital bed in the Carney Hospital just down the street. He just had come from there and his wife felt she couldn’t leave this planet without having one last hot fudge sundae from Joe’s Spa. Could I make up a special container and add an extra layer of hot fudge. Of course I would.

The banana split may have been my specialty but for at least one day it took back seat to the hot fudge sundae I had prepared.