“I wouldn’t miss this event for anything,” said late arrival Elizabeth Akin. “It’s one of my favorites.” She was one of many on the First Pres home team at Miss Martha’s Ice Cream Crankin’, an annual festival of ice cream flavors that is our highest recommendation for a city in the grip of a heat wave. It’s all highly competitive, of course, with teams creating new flavors and judges taking it all very seriously. Crankers Worth Baker and Kevin Heim did their best to persuade the crowd to taste their flavor, shouting “Ricky Bobby Surprise, this year’s winner, get it before it’s all gone!” (They may have been a bit premature, as the winners hadn’t yet been chosen.)

Each guest who passed through the archway of balloons and bubbles grabbed a cup and a spoon for the afternoon. Purity brought a truck full of popsicles and ice cream sandwiches, with Tom Brissette calling, “It’s all gotta go, I’m not taking any of this back to headquarters. Come and get it.”

Please see the print issue for the entire article and photo presentation.

—photographs by eric england