Today on the way home from work I was listening to Jackson Brown’s The Pretender on the radio:
Just as I turned onto my street I saw four kids doing just that. And childhood memories came, as they say, flooding back. My family was pretty poor, and ice cream from the truck was a special, and definately solemn, affair.
for all of us. So many choices and you could only get one. And always, right after the first bite (or lick), would come that slightly niggling doubt that maybe you should have gotten the Rocket Pop, which lasts longer.
My favorites, IIRC. we could usually only have;
Cheaper types: Popsicle, Fudgesicle, and Creamsicle.
But sometimes we got to choose from;
Expensive types: Sidewalk Sundae, Rocket Pop, and the cone with chocolate dip and chopped nuts on top.
Being a kid is frustrating as hell. Remember?
Peace,
mangeorge
Wow! A wave of nostalgia just went over me. And it was powerful. I can remember hearing the ice cream truck, sending my sister to stop it and running at top speed into the house calling to my dad for a quarter or two for treats.
We weren’t poor, but we didn’t have extras. I think my dad must have saved his change on purpose just so we could have ice cream from the ice cream man. Sometimes we’d each get 50 whole cents and then we had to decide: a cheap pop and a candy or an expensive ice cream like Sidewalk Sundae.
Sidewalk Sundaes were my favorite, along with Drumsticks.
Cheap pops were Bomb Pop (red, white and blue), Missles, Popsicles
Sometimes we’d run into the house and the answer was no. No ice cream for us today. It was awful. Sometimes the neighbor man whose granddaughter we played with would give us a quarter. He was really nice.
Thanks, mangeorge, for that walk down memory lane.
Wow. With all the Bomb Pops, Missiles, and Rocket Pops in red, white and blue, you’d think it was a Cold War propaganda campaign serving the kids like a Joe Camel cigarette ad.
But then again, look at me now. :smack:
Tripler
Creamsickle my ass. Send them Commie bastards a Bomb Pop!!
I don’t remember having an ice cream truck come through my neighbor (any of the dozen or so) when I was growing up. I DO remember that one used to come through my grandparents’ neighborhood on occasion when I was visiting them, and it was pretty exciting. Especially since grandparents tend to give money to their grandkids at the drop of a hat.
I’m all grown up now, with kids of my own. We even bought a house in the 'burbs about five years ago. The ice cream truck used to come by a couple of times a week, and I usually had a couple of dollar bills clipped to the front door for these occasions, so my kids wouldn’t miss the truck while I tried to find money. (We have a clothespin hanging on a nail on the inside of the front door, which is useful for outgoing mail, school notes that we aren’t supposed to forget to sign, and money for ice cream and pizza.) However, now that I think about it, we never heard the ice cream truck ONCE over this past summer… Maybe our neighborhood wasn’t too profitable for them in the past.
I work at a local private university, and the school hosts a summer picnic every year in July. One of the standing features is an ice cream truck that gives out the treats for the asking. The school pays for all of the ice cream handed out during the picnic, but you have to go up to the truck and ask for it to get it.
In NZS we had (or still have, I guess) the Mr Whippy ice-cream truck. The bach we went to as kids had a truck that would do the rounds during summer, an I have fond memories of bolting across the grass after it, and then, yes, the niggling thought that you had chosen the wrong one…
…I want soft serve ice-cream now. Where the hell am I going to find that?
A wave of nostalgia hits me every time I see your handle… The year Fleetwood Mac released that tune, it was 9th grade for me, and one of the best of my teen years.
Yeah, vunderbob ninth grade was a good three years for ya wasn’t it?
Ah yes, the Dipper Dan ice cream truck. Soft serve ice cream. Cones. Sundaes. Banana Splits. Choco or Butterscotch dipped cones. Choco/vanilla swirl soft serve ice cream cones. Why, yes, we were a bunch of spoiled brats in my 'hood.
We had the corner store for popsicles, fudgesicles, drumsticks and all those other goodies. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Ok, so we were a bunch of really spoiled brats.
-swampbear (who has a whole unopened box of fudgesicles in his freezer)
My fiancee’s sister always told her son that the icecream van played the musical tunes when he had run out of ice creams. She got away with it for years. I don’t know if her son has trust issues now mind you
