Slurpee Anyone?


From the time I was a sophomore in high school until the summer after I graduated, I worked at the Frosty Freeze in Boulder City, Nevada on the highway that went through town. There were other jobs that I had at the same time, but the Frosty Freeze was a fun job to have in the evenings. I usually closed up after eleven at night.
The Frosty Freeze is where I first heard of flavored chipped ice as a drink. We would freeze a mixture of concentrated flavored drink. We used a Kool-Aid type powder with a lot of sugar. When it was frozen, we would bring it out of the freezer and begin to chip it up with a tool that had four metal-like spears coming out of a handle. Well, when I say we, I mean me. I was the one who had to chip all of the flavored ice in a five-gallon bucket, to be ready to dip out and served. I can remember getting a blister on the palm of my hand from chipping. I always hoped that no one would like it, and then they wouldn’t sell it any more, but everyone liked it; I even liked it. That was the first experience I had with a type of “Slurpee.” They also could make ice cream cones and dip them in chocolate that hardened. They were great, but the owner got upset if we double or triple dipped our own ice cream. The customers may not have liked it if they had known.
Much later, after I came home from serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I went to work for 7-11 in Las Vegas. It was supposed to be like a small grocery store, but we sold all kinds of things. I remember that somewhere they found a load of white shirts, and we sold them in the store. They also sold such items as tape recorders that were reel to reel with a mike to record with. It also had a cord connected to a suction cup type end that would stick to the telephone to record calls. I think that was illegal, but they had it anyway. I really liked it and I bought one. I also bought some of the white shirts to work in and to wear to church. They sold kites, pocket knives, key chains, and many other items that they could buy cheaply and resell.
They used to bring these types of items into the store all of the time; then one day what should appear but a brand-new Slurpee machine. You could make four different flavors in this machine. I thought that it would be just a passing phase, but no, they were in the store to stay. They tasted really good, but they were a horrible mess. People spilled them on the floor, on the machine, on the sidewalk, and any other place that you could think of. I still like to see the Slurpee machines in all of the 7-11’s because I got to see one of the first ones. It was in the store on Lake Mead Boulevard in Las Vegas in 1964.
7-11 was actually a great place to work. When I was getting ready to go to school, I worked eight hours on and eight hours off for about nine months. I earned enough money to pay for a year of school in St. George at Dixie College and for another year at BYU in Provo, Utah. One of the nice things about working there was the super ice cream. I would take a gallon of ice cream over to Joy Whitney’s home and eat it with her and her siblings; sometimes we would eat it on waffles. I had the great and wonderous blessing to later marry the aforementioned Joy Whitney.


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