By Perry Garfinkel

I lost my Fribble virginity at a Friendly’s in Great Barrington in the summer of 1965. The Fribble had undergone its own coming-of-age moment, having had a name change from the awfully descriptive moniker “Awful Awful,” a few months earlier. One would have thought the renaming was due to the disparaging nomenclature—anyone who screams for ice cream shakes knows the name came from a man who tasted the ridiculously thick milkshake and uttered, “It’s awful big and awful good”—but it was changed due to a licensing dispute.

The company conducted a naming contest to rebrand it, and the three people who suggested “Fribble” each won $100. Enough today for about a dozen Fribbles at the only Friendly’s in Pittsfield, on Dalton Ave.

The roots of the word are much more interesting and revealing. Etymologists suggest it’s an adaptation of frivol, an obsolete adjective that gave way to frivolous, Latin root frīvolus, meaning “silly, worthless, or of little value,” or, as a noun, a foolish or trifling person, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Another theory: it may derive from the Middle English word fribben (meaning to waste time).

My first sip made nomenclature irrelevant. This was the Holy Grail of shakes, so thick that straws were useless unless you had enough patience to draw on that straw as if your life depended on it. But even straws could not withstand the challenge, which is why servers always provided a spoon. Sometimes I felt like a knife was also necessary.

The original recipe was quite simple when I was first seduced by it: ice milk and syrup, with very few flavor choices. The ice milk, a lower-fat dairy base, gave it its distinctly thick texture. Decades later, Friendly’s switched to soft-serve ice cream and, eventually, to hard ice cream in many flavors.

Mind you, I was not entirely naïve to the wonders of what can be done with frozen milk. My credentials for commenting on the Fribble are formidable: I grew up in New Jersey, where it often felt like there was a Dairy Queen or Carvel in every town. These soft ice creams are the crème de la crème of all contenders in this culinary category.

So when I say this Friendly’s drink was like nothing I had ever tasted, it comes with a certain gravitas. Naturally, boys being boys, we turned downing a Fribble into a competitive event.

“I bet you can’t down the whole thing in one sitting.” “I bet you can’t drink two in a row. I bet you will throw up if you do.”

We trained for this event. We didn’t eat lunch beforehand. I don’t remember eating the food there—the standard fare of burgers, grilled cheese, fries, turkey clubs. It would have robbed us of precious room in our bellies. We worked out earlier in the day to burn more calories and increase our hunger.

I can still picture five or six of us squeezed into red-and-black booths designed for four people, max. Our Fribbles would be lined up, straws in hand as though they were harpoons about to attack a deadly shark. Anticipatory fear in our eyes, the unimaginable “finished” line seemingly light years ahead. No one wanted to lose. Yet none of us really wanted to win either, upset stomachs being part of the victor’s booty.

In my sepia-toned memory, the soundtrack to these scenarios—and almost all my memories about my years in Massachusetts—is the Bee Gees’ 1968 hit “Massachusetts.” “Feel I’m goin’ back to Massachusetts, something’s telling me I must go home.”

I lost a few dollars on those bets. My family always told me my eyes were bigger than my stomach. The Fribble proved them right. Yet, I always came back to this drink, like the jilted lover who can’t let go.

Unfortunately, now I live in California, a geographic market Friendly’s has not penetrated. So it’s with the excitement of that teenager in me that I will be in the Berkshires in August. My stomach is already growling.