Summer Scenes: The Gas Station on a Friday Night

"And so it comes to this," she says to him while sitting in a gas station parking lot on a Friday night.

They are surrounded by motorcycles, convertibles, minivans, and people, a dozen of more people, all eating ice cream.

Across the table -- one of two bolted to the asphalt -- a mother promises her three young children that their daddy is coming home tonight. She hands out ice cream cones and slushies to the children. When the toddler wails, the mother tells the daughter not to drink the slushie too fast or she'll get brain freeze.

A car pulls in, and the driver waves to two couples sitting at the other table.

Eyes turn when a diesel pickup truck rumbles into the lot, and one, two, three, four people tumble out of the front cab.

This little town, like many little towns across the Midwest, used to have a dairy bar, a place where people could gather and eat ice cream on summer nights.

The Dairy Bar, a white, wood-framed building, closed years ago. A few years ago, a food trailer set up shop in the gas station parking lot. Soon, the gas station parking lot became the summertime destination for ice cream and socializing on summer nights.