'I want to hold your cone' could have worked, too

Readers of this column have come to understand that usually when I write a column it means we had a little extra space to fill on this page and, having run out of copy at the last minute, the duty to form sentences out of words in the final moments of the production of the newspaper you're holding falls upon me.

So, we return once again to the Internet and "This Day in History" where we find that on July 23, 101 years ago, the ice cream cone was invented!

Also, 40 years ago Americans were up to our knickers in Beatle music with the "Help!" album being released.

This is a toss up. Beatles or ice cream cones? Which had more impact on America? I'm going to rely on my memory for this, so hold on to your cone.

The way I remember hearing it was that somebody was selling ice cream in dishes at a world's fair, and it being summer business was brisk.

The poor guy couldn't keep up with dishing out ice cream and washing dishes at the same time until a vendor in a neighboring booth offered to help.

That neighbor wasn't having any luck selling his product which so happened to be hot waffles.

So this guy rolls one of his hot waffles into a cone and has the ice cream man drop a scoop in it and boom—the ice cream cone is invented.

Now we will see how accurate my memory is.

Consulting the Google search engine we find that I AM WRONG! This tale I just told you is untrue!

The ice cream cone was not invented during the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair by a waffle-maker joining forces with an ice cream vendor, but one Italo Marchiony who imigrated from Italy to America in the late 1880s and invented the ice cream cone in New York City. He was granted U.S. Patent No. 746,971 in December 1903—a full seven months before Charles E. Menches began selling them in August 1904 at the World's Fair.

Now here's where the story as I heard it, or read it, long ago when I was younger, brighter, and skinnier, too, begins to drip true.

Menches didn't plan to invent the ice cream cone but he was having trouble keeping up with washing dishes to serve his treat. That's true.

Nearby stood his friend, Ernest Hamwi from Syria who was selling not waffles, but Zalabia, a crisp, wafer-like pastry sold with syrup.

"Give me Zalabia!" cried Menches. He rolled one up, scooped up his ice cream and presto! Ice cream cones were born (again).

Now had things been a little different and along with a Zalabia seller next door there was a guy selling bananas, cream, strawberries and nuts, the mini ice cream sundae may have likely been born. That, however, would have to wait until June 2004—last year—when MIT student Kevin Brown invented the "micro-sundae." A sundae for kids at Toscanini's Ice Cream in Cambridge, Mass.

Or at least according to Google.