A Triple-Scoop of Revolution!

Fun Fact: Russian-American anarchist Emma Goldman lived in a ménage à trois relationship with other Russian émigré anarchist Alexander Berkman, and a young anarchist artist named Fedya. They all ran an ice-cream parlour together in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1891.

I think this would make for a great sit-com; a nineteenth century ice-cream parlour run by a ménage à trois of Russian anarchists. The scene is set!

It was whilst I was imagining all the japes that could occur in this sit-com (which I'm tempted to title A Triple-Scoop of Revolution!), that I remembered I still have the first volume of Emma Goldman's autobiography, Living My Life, out on loan from the library. A quick scan of my bookshelves and I located it - it is now 15 years overdue! I think we've all got a book like this, never returned to a library we've long since moved away from. On principle, I certainly don't condone this kind of thing, but in my case the book eventually came in handy - 15 years down the track. I'm thinking of ringing Eastern Regional Libraries to ask if I can renew it, as that would clear things up both bureaucratically and ethically. So I found the passage where she describes the ice-cream parlour;

Our savings consisted of fifty dollars. Our landlord, who had suggested the idea, said he would lend us a hundred and fifty dollars. We secured a store, and within a couple of weeks Sasha's (aka Berkman) skill with hammer and saw, Fedya's with his paint and brush, and my own good German housekeeping training succeeded in turning the neglected ramshackle place into an attractive lunch-room. It was spring and not yet warm enough for an ice-cream rush, but the coffee I brewed, our sandwiches and dainty dishes, were beginning to be appreciated, and soon we were kept busy till early morning hours.

In the sit-com, the problem of the weather not being warm enough for ice-cream could be an on-going joke - their inability to sell ice-cream is always explained away by them as being due to the weather.