Nobody asked me, but … (#34)
The end of summer isn’t as dramatic a threshhold in Florida as it is up north. For one thing, schools here re-open in mid-August, making Labor Day a lot less significant as a calendar landmark. For another, the weather gets better after the autumnal equinox, as we start having those “Chamber of Commerce Days” on a regular basis. But I did see one sign of summer last week, which may be disappearing everywhere, and it brought back some childhood memories. What I saw was an ice cream truck.
It was parked in a driveway that I passed on the way to work, and looked like it might not have been used for some time. But I didn’t see it there on the ride home, so maybe it’s still generating excitement among children as it slowly tours the neighborhoods. I suspect that most of us can remember things about our neighborhood ice cream truck, and I’m going to share some of my memories with you.
The ice cream trucks of my youth did not play Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer repeatedly. Instead, the driver had some bells mounted near his seat, and he would ring them manually, knowing that they would work like the Pied Piper’s flute in attracting youngsters to him. And the original ice cream trucks (this goes back 50 years now) required the driver to stop and get out of the truck, walk around the back or side, open a heavily-latched freezer door, and reach in to find the goodies. Later, the trucks became more like vans, and the drivers stayed inside with chest freezers. That seemed less magical.
My neighborhood was graced initialy by three different purveyors of frozen treats. There was the Good Humor Man, Bungalow Bar, and Frosty Bar. The first was the name brand, the IBM of suburban ice cream vendors if you will. But we knew we could do better. The Bungalow Bar truck was so named because it had an A-frame style shingle roof on the top. I don’t remember buying much from that one, and I suspected that he spent most of his time just driving around, never selling much. That was because, in our area, Frosty Bar was king.
From the day in late spring when those bells would first be heard, we looked forward to the regular visit of the Frosty Bar truck. The driver was Dominic, and he knew all the kids, and vice versa. Dominic had the expected assortment of ice cream treats - popsicles, fudgsicles, cones, and cups - and he also had Italian ices, which we knew had to be authentic, because, after all, Dominic was Italian. He also had one element of customer service that no one else had: Dominic extended credit to his customers.
Imagine how cool it was for a 10-year-old, visiting with some friends a few blocks from home, to be able to run out in the street, yell “STOP” to the Frosty Bar truck, and have him put your favorite treat on your tab! I don’t know if this is what made Dominic our favorite, but it sure made him part of our community. And I’m sure that very few kids ever defaulted on that line of credit.
In later years, other vendors took that route. I think Bungalow Bar disappeared. The unfortunately-named Mister Softee made the rounds for a few years, offering vanilla, chocolate, or swirl, or course. But it was never the same as having someone who knew you, talked to you like a friend, and made it possible to get a Push-Up Pop or other treat even when you were away from home with no money in your pocket.
We occasionally still do see ice cream trucks in our neighborhood here in Jacksonville. With the price of gas, the availability of all sorts of treats in the grocery store, and the variety of ice cream retailers in the area, it might not be a very profitable business any more. But I suspect that Dominic, with his way of getting to know his customers and treating them right, would still be very successful.
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