Time and Place: Dairy Witch

Time: 8:32 PM, Saturday May 24th
Place: Dairy Witch Ice Cream Shop

It seems morbid doesn't it? There is no Dairy Queen within city limits but instead we have a squat, white building on Boston Street with a sign rising proudly above it: "Dairy Witch"

In a town where Gallows Hill is a popular place for softball games and everyone chants "go Witches!" at football games, anything else would seem out of place.

These are the things you don't realize until you leave Salem. When you announce your hometown at the first floor meeting of your new dorm, you will be met by plenty of confused and surprised faces—people actually live there? You mean the town where they killed all of those people?

Yep, that's the one!

Even in the cold downpour of a late spring storm, Dairy Witch still seems like the place to be as both service windows are open and the line is three deep on either side. Chances are, you will either know someone behind the counter or in the line (or both) because once open for the spring and summer season, every occasion is one fit for ice cream.

You won your baseball game? Lets get ice cream. You lost your baseball game? Lets get ice cream. Chances are, your entire team will show up within the next half hour anyways.

I have been coming here for as long as I can remember. Coffee frappes have been a special treat from my father before I had a mind to choose my own flavor. This was a tradition passed down from his father with a terrible sweet tooth. In fact, he met my grandmother in an ice cream shop. She used to sneak him extra scoops on his sundaes.

It has a certain small town quality that you don't get many other places in Salem. Maybe it is the nature of sugar but it is a thing that seems to make people nicer to each other—sweeter if you will.


So as I enjoy my chocolate soft serve with chocolate jimmies (because only the rainbow ones are sprinkles), I make another check mark on a mental list I have going. This is something I missed about Salem and I think I will still miss it when I leave.