Man, I remember it like it was yesterday, not at my house though - Still A Dad was too smart to pay fifty cents for something that was only worth ten.... What is this rant about? The Ice Cream Man, of course. The only place I remember getting to buy from the dude in the orange truck was at my grandmother's. Her sister lived right beside her and the second we heard the truck, the coins started to change hands. To tell you the truth, I don't remember a thing about the Ice Cream Man from 1975 in western PA. The fact that I don't have nightmares about him tells me that he was probably a stand up guy...clean cut, polite....well spoken. Welcome to 2008 in the big city burbs. Where in the flying fig newton do they truck these guys in from to drive this overpriced shit around? The immaculate white van with a sliding screen door for service plays music that is not unlike the sirens Jason and his posse probably heard. My daughter, knowing full well we have a freezer stocked with frozen goodness looks at me with those puppy dog eyes and screams "Ice Cream Man!" like so many generations have before her. I look at my wife, who looks at me and we roll our eyes at each other. Yes, princess is told she can get something....but not a freaking $3.00 frozen treat. How about a nice Italian ice? Fine....take Daddy's hard earned money and go enjoy yourself. We are air-conditioning whores so rare is the day we even hear the damn van. As I walk her outside to stand with the money I see the van and it stops. In a split second decision, I wanted to throw a blanket over my daughter and pick her up like a roll of carpet and run away with her. I had seen the devil and his name I can't pronounce. I sent buttercup back up the driveway with her order and told her I would bring it to her. I sucked in my gut, puffed out what little chest I have left and put a scowl on my face that would send...oh I don't know....librarians running. With my OG attitude I ordered the Italian Ice and shot this crazy bastard a look that hopefully told him to not go to his sicko little notebook where he makes lots of misspelled scribblings about cute little girls and the addresses they live at. I asked him if he was having a busy day to engage him in a battle of wits. When he replied yes I told him I was busy too. I was meeting my shooting buddies and we were going over to the target place to put some holes in some targets. Yeah, now who's creepy, buddy? Go sell your frozen pedophile pops to some other neighborhood kid. But really, what are these companies thinking when they hire these dudes? I mean, they're making, I don't know, 1700% profit on some of that stuff.....can't they hire a nice clean cut college guy who would wear a 1950's white ice cream parlor get-up? COME ON! Ice Cream van owners of the suburbs....are you listening? We (Overly Cautious Dad's or OCD) do not trust your drivers! They look like Charles Manson albeit from another country. Please send us a Goddamn Ice Cream Man that I can feel good about letting my daughter place her own order with. Cheese and crackers this gets under my collar. I have enough stuff to worry about. I would be afraid....AFRAID...to open up the storage freezer in this dude's van. I would be all "Oh, Mrs. Johnson....how did you get in there? Hey, your lips are blue, are you Ok?" and then when I turned around quickly to confront my "friendly" person-napper (I totally just made that up) I would be too late as the sharp end of a frozen sugar cone got jammed 4 inches deep into my orbital socket. They play their music loud to cover up the kids screaming.....that's all I'm saying. We now play a new game at my house. When I hear the van coming....I start singing Van Halen's Ice Cream Man at the top of my lungs. Princess hands me $1 and I truck on over to the freezer and grab her something.....and I'm still making a sweet profit.
2 comments:
The Narrows and Davidson Hill was fertile ground for the Ice Cream Man from the 50s through the early 70s.
The name of the company was Ice Cream Ike, from over in Poplar Grove. The truck was a modified 1957 Chevy pickup with both the doors ripped off and a freezer mounted on the frame where the bed would be. It had 5 little doors and a big door (for loading and unloading inventory).
The driver was an nice older fellow who wore a baseball cap and one of those change makers on his belts with places for all denominations of coins (wasn't nothing more expensive than 15 cents in my day). Never knew his name, just called him Ice Cream Ike.
Up on the Narrows where baseball was King in the 1960s, no matter who was at bat the game stopped when we heard the tune "Little Brown Jug" off in the distance. Everyone dropped their gloves, the bat and the ball and hightailed it for home to get a nickel and however many pennies they needed. Popsicles 6 cents, Dreamsicles and Fudgesicles 7 cents, Nutty Buddy 10 cents (circa 1964). Then we stood roadside to wait.
I often thought if I ever wrote a story of my childhood I would entitle it "This Life Has Been Temporarily Delayed By The Ice Cream Man." That's because looking back on it. Time just stopped when the Ice Cream Man came by. You finished your popsicle and then life started up again. It was darn near a religious experience.
Don't know if Rick and Doug read this blog. But if they do, they can almost certainly attest to this story. When they came down from Connecticut in the summers they sometimes came out to the Narrows to play some baseball in the 60s. And I'd bet we bought popsicles. I specifically remember having Doug on my team 'cause nobody thought he could play and he whacked a couple homers... lefthanded.
Things don't always get better with age I suppose. Now we got Charles Manson driving a Good Humor truck through expensive suburban neighborhoods looking to molest little girls and put their mommas in the freezer for later.
Whatever has the world come to? I just don't believe Sharon Tate was ordering a Klondike bar when she died.
dude, you nailed that. i'll send it to rick and doug. first, they were still playing the same song in the early mid 70's. i couldnt remember what it was until you posted that! i remember it though from a tv commercial of some sort...detergent? "little brown jug is dynamo". are we showing our age or what? of course i wasn't playing pickup baseball until the late 70's. second...i remember the dude having that change thing on his belt. i cant remember what we paid in my day. the truck was orange and i remember it being parked over at poplar grove when we went to pick up dad at work at PSM. i played my pickup games up at the heights where we had "the red monster".
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