Hot Days and the Ice Incident
It was a hot summer afternoon by Pacific Northwest standards. It was pushing the eighty degree mark hard under the most pristine postcard sky I had seen in a while. As a rule we have a sea of cold steel battleship clouds cruising above waiting to spit rain at the most inopportune time. Generally it’s right after I have lit the grill or, gotten the mower out. Not today though. Not one suggestion of a cloud was anywhere to be seen.I was in the backyard with my daughter. We were poolside – a brand new six footer. This one had the popular coral reef theme printed all the way around the sides with the light blue plastic bottom in it. The fish around the sides were done with tasteful layers of fluorescent paint. None of this haphazard, splashed on cartoon looking stuff here. No sir. This pool was leaning towards an object d’art in a classic Van Gough way with an edgy sort of late period Picasso abstract treatment to it. The creatures adorning the exterior, in shape anyway, actually look like varieties you’d find in secluded Caribbean waters between islands ringed by perfect white beaches. The occasion also called for one of my girl’s favorite games she invented on a similar day last summer. This one centers up around her discovery that water balloons pop if thrown. This is science she understands.
Pink is her favorite color. After her targets have been acquired she turns to me with an expectant look. The game has begun. I am now her weapons expert and she orders a package of two for her first volley. She knows if I’m not filling a new one by the time she has launched her first shot I won’t be in time for the second round of firing. She let’s me know I need to step it up when she says “Make a pink one Doe!”. I knew that.
Her accuracy is between thirty and sixty degrees off to either side of where she’s pointed but this is acceptable since it’s within her field of view. She likes to see the little explosions as the projectiles contact the ground. Her arms loader is good today and I keep up through the ground target shelling but an aerial threat has now presented itself. A fly has wandered into the firing range. This no drone either. It’s a live fly in top acrobatic form and it’s too sweet a target to pass up. I have to short load the balloons because her fire rate has risen to maximum levels as the fly darts wildly about in the air. The battle is intense and it seems is wearing the fly down a bit.
The fly chooses a new strategy and lands somewhere perhaps hoping lack of motion will make detection difficult. My girl has watched it land though and knows exactly where it is. She has a bird hot and ready to fly as she slowly moves forward. She has the fly locked. It’s his time.
My daughter stands motionless though, still locked on, balloon overhead begging to be fired but she's not going for the kill.
Suddenly she looks up at me with an expression of giddy delight. What is going on I wonder. The fly is unscathed and now air born again.
Then she squeals “Doe! It’s the ICE CREAM MAN!!!!!”
“What? I don’t hear anyth………….”
Then, the distant but unmistakable, acoustically lethal, looping tangle of notes announcing the coming of the ice cream man drifts past my ears. The truck is in the area but still a ways off. The 5 or 6 minute wait will be a painful ordeal for sure but, that sound is all kids call to arms. It’s time for action and there is absolutely no time to loose. We have to run through the house. We have to rip the front door open. We can’t take the time to close the door. We have to jump off the porch steps. We must sprint to the curb. We have to scream with glee and jump up and down. We have to look down the street expectantly. We have to make sure the money is out and ready. We have to listen carefully to the music and try and determine where the truck is based on sound level and direction.
Then we have to wait impatiently and talk about the delicacies the ice cream man will bring and which will be sampled that day.
The ice cream man is a mini Christmas on wheels.
The vehicles pressed into service as ice cream vending units have changed since my time. Now, they are older family vans or creaking barely running retired mail trucks with freezers thrown in wherever they fit and a decal of the menu slapped on the door. Chances are the owner/operator has their family stuffed into the spaces around the cooler too. I have even seen a 70’s vintage Ford Fairmont converted to an ice cream selling vehicle by ripping the trunk lid off and wedging a freezer into the space previously occupied by the spare tire. The tire was still there too, just repositioned to accommodate the new accessory.
What the vehicles lack in class though is made up for with the customer service offered from these units. The sellers are never impatient nor must they ask a second time what was ordered even from my three year old. Once the order is placed the delivery of the product is almost machine like in it’s quickness and efficiency.
During the interminable wait there at the curb with my daughter I slipped away to my time knowing the Nirvana of the ice cream man.
In my day ice cream vendors drove custom built trucks that you could walk around in with compartmentalized stainless steel freezers. The doors on the tops had industrial grade locking handles. The act of opening one of those freezer compartments to get an ice cream bar made a very particular series of sounds that I’ll always associate with sweet, frozen treats on a stick.
I hear a rough approximation of those sounds on some rare occasions when I’m around a commercial walk in reefer for whatever reason, usually a restaurant.
Mr. Squires was the man who worked our neighborhood and ice cream vending was his chosen profession. His truck was spotless and glowing white with blue pin striping and his name painted in script hovering at an artful angle over the bold block letters spelling out the magic words “Ice Cream”. Stepping up to the door of the truck there was a custom built counter affair displaying a hand painted menu. It had a work surface on top mostly for money counting. Immediately behind this was a candy rack. The whole thing was a master work dedicated to the psychology of the impulse buy. The problem was he was dealing with lower middle class kids with limited funding. As professional as he was I am sure he never made it onto the Rockefeller guest list.
On summer days back then the countdown clock would start each afternoon at about 2. For our corner, Mr. Squires was scheduled to swing into sight by 3:15 PM.
Kids would play for 15 minute bursts then the timekeeper nominee for that day was sent to find a clock and report back to the gang of us how long we had to wait. This runner was usually someone’s kid brother or sister picked because they were fleet of foot, had good stamina and responded well to threats of being pounded. We had to be very discerning in our choices though. We once sent Jody’s blazingly fast kid brother Scotty to get us a time fix. When he came back he said it was two.
“Two !? TWO !?! It was 2 a long time ago. How could it be two still?”
"Yeah. How?" another added.
Scotty stuck to his story. He wouldn’t budge. It was two.
Finally after the interrogation had reached a stalemate Jody went to look for himself. He came back and told us it was ten past three.
Scotty was now in Jody’s sights and a pounding looked imminent.
The rest of us were planning to jump Jody for not knowing his brother couldn’t tell time.
An ugly scene was unfolding when…….
“ICE CREAM MAN!!!!!!!!!!” someone behind us yelled.
We were now all late for the other ritual – the crucial forming of the line.
Now, amid the seeming chaos prior to the arrival of Mr. Squires there were strict rules that we all adhered to.
First, a kid from another stopping point on the ice cream man’s route would never have the audacity to come to our corner and try to get into our ice cream line. It just wasn’t done although newcomers were eventually allowed to participate in the pre arrival position negotiations if they had done their time at the end of the line. Four or five days were generally adequate.
The second rule was that there were no cutsies. Someone who had been tardy for the negotiations could not cut into the line at any point unless it was in front of a new kid at the end.
Third, if you had to leave the line after negotiations had taken place but before arrival of the truck you could get your place back. This convention could be used as a rouse however to advance in line position simply by saying you were in front of someone that was ahead of you originally. This ploy was rarely successful but it was common enough for someone to give it a try anyway.
The last rule was that a notorious haggler’s position claim could be overridden by the group even if they were there first in line. Hagglers were kids who had more than fifty cents. The half a buck got you pretty much the ice cream of your choice but if you had more than that you had to spend as much as you possibly could by adding other items. Those kids would lay their money out on the counter and start ordering.
“I’ll have a Nutty Buddy, uhh, some Good n’ Plentys and uhhh, uuummm, a Tootsie Roll.”
Mr. Squires would say “that’s ninety five cents, you only have 72 cents.”
There was always a moment of silence as the haggler struggled with the recalculation they now faced.
“OK.................. Umm, I’ll have a Nutty Buddy and some Good n’ Plentys”.
“That’s 75 cents, you don’t have enough”.
More silence.
Then the invariable query from the buyer – “What could I have with a Nutty Buddy?”
Mr. Squire was an excellent mathematician and would start pulling items out of his candy selections that came as close as possible to consuming the entire 72 cents.
The kids in the back of the line naturally got impatient with the buyer.
“Just pick!” someone would yell.
“Take two Tootsie Pops” another would call. "Those are good."
Flustered the buyer would then pick something they could see but Mr. Squires hadn’t offered as a possible purchase option that met the given budget.
Mr. Squires was now getting impatient.
“Look, all this is 25 cents” he’d say waving his hands over one of the shelves.
”With the ice cream you don’t have enough! Pick from here” he’d say pointing at the bottom shelf.
Granted everything for 20 cents or less was junk but, still it was understood that if you had it you had to try and spend it. Sometimes the pressure was just too much and the haggler would just buy a pack of gum and call it good. This was tat amount to admitting you had cracked.
Invariably someone would comment -
"That's Stoopid! You coulda had two Tootsie Pops for that!"
"Yeah. Or taffy even".
Through the line of 7 or 8 of us Mr. Squire’s willingness to accommodate diminished as the line grew shorter. The kids towards the end were given proportionately less ordering decision time.
On one particular day when beads of sweat were streaming out from under Mr. Squires’ toupee into his eyes he actually ordered the number two kid, who was having trouble deciding, to the end of the line. This was an unprecedented move. It was new territory. No one even knew it was an option open to Mr. Squires but, it happened. Dumbfounded the kid did as instructed without one word of protest. We now knew also that Mr. Squires was short fused given the right circumstances. What other option cards did he have in his hand? Could he just drive off? Could he change his route so he didn't stop at our corner?
Dear God! These possibilities weighed heavily on us for a while. We now held our breath until we could hear the music at 3:15 each day.
This was too much.
It was at about this time that we affected a new level of sophistication around our whole approach to the pre arrival operations. We first eliminated all the guesswork around timing and clock watching by deploying tactical reconnaissance missions to key way points on the route. Typically these were carried out by the kids with the fast bikes and ranged as far as the Landmark homes where the very well to do kids lived. As the reports came back we could judge our level of readiness relative to Mr. Squires position and make adjustments if needed.
Breathless agents would skid to a stop in front of us.
"He just turned onto Stonybrook."
"He's going down Rome".
One by one they reported.
“He’s on Sylvan now!.”
He was close.
It was that time.
Our yeller would make the announcement -
“He’s on Sylvan. Get over here if you want ice cream!”
The line negotiations would then start.
Second, we pooled all of our pricing knowledge and interrogated everyone on what they were buying. Money was counted and if a mismatch was detected the miscreant was briefed on available options.
“You can’t get an ice cream and two taffy strips for that. You need more.”
“Yeah, go get more money. Hurry, he’s past Sylvan by now!”
When Mr. Squires got there – we were all ready. We executed our ordering with the precision found only in the finest Swiss watch. We knew our stuff.
Now, it so happened that we had let two girls from the top of the housing tract into our group. They were tough girls and no one messed with them too much. They were known for their vicious squirt gun assaults on only the slightest provocation.
On this one day, this day that would become infamous, everyone was through the line and Mr. Squires was readying to press on to the next street over.
I was standing next to Gerry the younger of the two sisters. I don’t know where she got it but she came up with a softball sized chunk of ice and let it fly at Mr. Squires truck just as he was starting away. It hit the “S” on “Squires” with a dreadful thud immediately followed by a scraping sound as the ice tumbled down the back of the truck. The truck jerked to an instant stop and out came Mr. Squires with fire in his eyes.
I looked for Gerry but she was gone. The rest of the kids were scattering quick.
He had been assaulted or at least he took it that way.
He yelled “Why did you throw that!? What do you think you are doing?!?!?”
He was looking directly at me.
I tried to explain but he didn’t listen. I got a very sharp lecture.
I don’t recall how many days in a row I did not line up for Mr. Squires but I didn’t want to be faced with him. I knew then he didn’t like me. When he would stop at our corner I’d just turn away.
Late one afternoon way after he had been past at his normal time Mr. Squires came to the door of my house. My mother came to get me and said he wanted to talk to me.
He told me that he found out it wasn’t me that had thrown the ice and he apologized in a very sincere way.
I have always wanted to say thank you Mr. Squires.
I learned much from you that day.
posted by Knot @ 2:29 AM
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