Just putting out a few caches in my hometown. I was born in Westmont and lived here for the first twenty two years of my life, and for the past twenty four years now I have worked in my hometown. As that time draws to a close, I am sharing a few of my hometown memories in the form of geocaches.
This memory is of a little ice cream stand that was a huge part of my youth in Westmont. The posted coordinates put you at an object that is actually represented in the picture above, although an older version. So while you are gathering information from this object (see below), you are actually standing very near where you could place your order for a vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry cone (and sometimes mint).
First, here is a short history of this little shop that I found on the Internet, taken from a Chicago Tribune article by Vikki Ortiz:
Stop 'n Chat was the simple pick-me-up that everyone craved, whether it was lines of Little Leaguers after their first loss, parents thankful that their kids behaved during church, or neighborhood kids who searched for change in the sofa cushions and rode their bikes downtown for a turtle sundae. "We just hung out there. It was a rendezvous point," said Chip Plumb, 35, who has as many Stop 'n Chat memories as I do, including making plans to meet his 4th-grade girlfriend there -- to hug.
But in all my years of ordering small twist cones dipped in peanut brittle, I never knew Stop 'n Chat was run by a single family: the O'Connors of Villa Park. Bernard and Kay Morman had run a restaurant in Chicago for years before deciding to close it and open another in the suburbs. In 1967, they teamed up with their daughter, Mary Ann O'Connor, and her husband, P.J., who had five kids and were looking for extra income. The family bought an existing business in downtown Westmont, already known for its soft-serve ice cream and walk-up window. They kept the name Stop 'n Chat, but added personal touches, such as pizza burgers and mint-flavored ice cream, said Mary Ann O'Connor. During the next decade, business grew -- and so did the O'Connor family -- to 11 children. Grandma Morman handled Stop 'n Chat's day-to-day operations, while the O'Connor family provided a steady flow of employees. When an O'Connor kid turned 12, he or she would begin twirling ice cream cones, then move on to bigger jobs like taking orders and closing out the cash registers. Stop 'n Chat provided the extra money the O'Connors needed to send each of their children to Catholic schools. It also taught the kids important lessons about money and responsibility.
Patrick O'Connor, the family's eldest son, remembers his grandmother never allowing them to sit idly while on the job; a rainy day was an opportunity to clean the equipment and wipe down counters. For the next three decades, O'Connor kids hated sweeping at the end of the night, but loved making up concoctions in the middle of their shifts -- like the Kanor, a chocolate and peanut cone that stayed on the menu years after Noreen O'Connor invented it with her friend Karen. Whichever O'Connor kid was closing the shop was responsible for bringing the parents a chocolate soda.
In 1999, the shop suffered a major setback. Though the family owned the building, it didn't own the land. And the owner wanted to sell for big money from a condominium developer. Stop 'n Chat customers signed petitions and pleaded with village leaders to step in. "There was just an overflow of response. I think if we would've organized some pickets and marched up Cass Avenue they would've done it, if it would've done any good," said P.J. O'Connor.
When the landowner refused, the Westmont Park District offered the O'Connors a consolation prize: the option to run Stop 'n Chat as the concession stand at Ty Warner Park off of Ogden Avenue. Fire codes didn't allow for a grill and there was nowhere near the same foot traffic, but Mary Ann O'Connor, whose children by then had begun to have families of their own, cherished her business. Three years after moving to the new site, she required major back surgery and a hip replacement. She told her doctor she'd need to be ready by April, for Stop 'n Chat's reopening. But her recovery was not quick enough, so P.J. O'Connor told park district officials that Stop 'n Chat would have to close for good.
To this day, Mary Ann O'Connor, 68, hasn't been back to Westmont; it's too painful because she misses Stop 'n Chat. But she and her husband still drink a chocolate soda each night, and they've learned to appreciate the time they have with their family -- now 27 grandchildren strong. Patrick O'Connor said he takes solace in the fact that the business served its purpose. This month, the last of the O'Connor clan will graduate from college. "I tell my parents, you started this as a supplement, we're all grown now," he said, adding that he wears his Stop 'n Chat T-shirts from time to time. "I probably purposely wear them in public so I can run into people who know it," he said. I assured the O'Connors that people definitely know it. I remember Stop 'n Chat every time I walk into a generic ice cream shop and order a small twist cone with peanut brittle on top. They try to tell me it's called "Krunch coat" or something now. "Well, you're right," Mary Ann O'Connor assured me right back with a laugh. "It's peanut brittle."
THIS CACHE IS NOT AT THE POSTED COORDINATES
To locate this cache, you will have to pretend to stand in line for some ice cream and gather some information from the object at the posted coordinates. Use the taller of the two objects
The coordinates for the final location of this cache can be found at:
N41 47.ABC, W087 58.DEF
Where ABC and DEF can be derived from the name of the manufacturer of this device as follows:
A = The number of times the letter O appears plus the number of times the letter F appears
B = The number of times the letter P appears
C = The number of times the letter L appears
D = The number of times the letter R appears plus the number of times the letter O appears
E = The number of times the letter B appears
F = The number of times the letter A appears plus the number of times the letter G appears