Ice Cream, Ice Cream, who wants Ice Cream?

Ice Cream, Ice Cream, who wants Ice Cream?

By DAVID THEUS

Who can forget the sound of your very own neighborhood Ice Cream Man making the turn onto your street? When I was a young boy in Orlando, I remember this old woman that had one of 

those early Cushman Trucksters. The ones with one wheel in front and a box van chassis on the  back where she kept the ice cream. She didn’t have a tape that played that same tune over and over again, but a little bell mounted on top of her cab and tied to a pull string.

I remember every summer afternoon she made her rounds and on Saturday’s during the school year. I wish I could remember her name, but she must have been in her 60’s then. I’m sure she’s long gone by now, but the memory of her and that cool little white truck that carried our favorite summer-time treats still lingers in my memory nearly forty years later.

Just the other day an Ice Cream truck made the loop through my neighborhood and lo and

behold my six-year old Sarah grabbed me by the hand and sprinted out the front door. I know she had been exposed one time before, but it surprises me still how powerful that odd, poorly recorded ice cream man tune can be over our youngest.  Better yet, how many memories swirl in my head still when I see some of my favorite selections plastered on the side of the truck almost like paper-mache. 

I miss my little ice cream lady in her little white truck with her cool little bell on top. Some times I will hear the tune as it wafts over the tree tops and is riding on the wind. It is those moments when I think of Orange Push-Ups and Strawberry Cheesecake Bars, red, white, and blue, snow cones, and my favorite, that little cone shaped plastic dish filled with sherbet with a gum ball at the bottom.