Ice Cream at Ninety-Three

My great-grandmother is ninety-three, and she has a rule: ice cream before lunch on Saturdays.

She has kept this rule since 1962, when she decided life was too short to wait. She orders butter pecan, two scoops, in a waffle cone, and she eats it slowly, looking out the window of the same little parlor on Main Street.

I go with her once a month now. The teenagers who work there know her by name and start scooping as soon as she walks in. She tips them a dollar each and asks about their boyfriends and girlfriends and college applications.

Last Saturday she told me, between licks, that her secret to a long life was "Ice cream. And paying attention." I've thought about both ever since.