Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP Greater Nashua ice cream lovers celebrated opening weekend at Hayward's, as the iconic stand at the beginning of the Daniel Webster Highway heads into its 81st year.

NASHUA – It was hard to tell whether 8-year-old Jacob Shelsky was hopping up and down to try and keep warm against Sunday’s wintry wind gusts, or if the excitement over digging into his first gummy worms-topped chocolate tsunami ice cream of the season was fueling his burst of energy.

Either way, Jacob, his sister Dara, 10, and their parents Jennifer and Chris Shelsky were quite pleased to be part of Opening Weekend at Hayward’s Ice Cream, the iconic family-run stand now entering its 81st season at the corner of Daniel Webster Highway and Robinson Road.

“This means it’s spring, right?” Jennifer Shelsky asked as she surveyed the steady flow of customers lining up at one of the several service windows along the front of the landmark building.

“That’s what they say,” another patron answered. “If Hayward’s is open, it’s officially spring.”

It matters not to the Hayward’s faithful that neither the calendar nor the weather forecast folks quite agree that Opening Day or Opening Weekend coincide with the first day of spring.

Chris Ordway, third-generation owner whose grandparents began making the first batches of ice cream in a smaller, closer-to-the-road stand in 1940, said Sunday that the first few days of each season bring more than a few comparisons between ice cream and spring.

It was 80 years ago come June 15 that Charles P. and Fredericka Hayward served up the first ice cream cones at the smaller stand that stood about where the main sign is today.

The building had until then housed a small eatery called Mary Jane’s Tea Room, Ordway said. According to Telegraph archives, the proprietor at some point sold it to J. Howard Gile, the politically-connected Nashua businessman who owned and operated The Tavern at the time.

Ordway has owned and operated the stand since he bought it from his parents, Mike and Trudy, in 1996.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.