Isaly’s Memory

The Isaly’s I went to was on Brownsville Road in Mt. Oliver Borough of Pittsburgh. Two school friends worked there. I loved Rainbow ice cream, the taste and the pink, cream, and green of it. Just this morning I read a funny column in THE WASHINGTON POST about “when exactly it all went wrong” and I knew the answer. Gold star. I have been saying for years now that it “all went wrong when they closed Isaly’s.” This reason covers a lot of disappointing territory. In short order, it seems, they closed my high school, my grade school, my church. That did a good job of obliterating my childhood, but it started with Isaly’s closing. I was no longer living in Pittsburgh and hadn’t been for years when it happened. Just this New Year’s Day, 2016, my son, whose childhood memory at his grandmother’s house also includes chipped chopped ham lunches, arrived here in Vienna, VA, bringing chipped chopped ham from a local supermarket. I was also delighted to see a tribute by the mystery writer, Martha Graham. She wrote a funny book about the publishing industry in 2004 titled FOUL MATTER in which a young man named Isaly visits Pittsburgh and the store. Pistachio is the flavor named specifically, if I remember correctly. My husband from Texas also remembers the Big Isaly in Oakland.