Out of the Inkwell

Caution: some mild swearing and city living frustration

The songs of summer

No, it's not the often incessant driving sounds of salsa music played out of cars and houses for the entertainment of everyone, including people who need to sleep or listen to their own frickin' televisions sets BUT CAN'T BECAUSE EVERYONE MUST LISTEN TO THE SAME GODAMM BEATS PLAYED OVER AND OVER AND OVER.

Excuse me.

No and it's not the sound of poor Gizmo the pit bull trying to get his owner's attention by barking for 20 minutes straight. Or the four or five or six dogs next door – we can't tell exactly how many, but we think it's a puppy farm of some sort.

Nope, it's the ice cream truck or trucks, I should say.

From 1957 to 1962, we lived at 104 Navajo Rd. in the Sixteen Acres part of Springfield. Ah, the salad days. There was a great variety of food trucks that came through the 'hood.

I distantly remember there was one that sold just Popsicles; another that was soft serve – the ubiquitous Mr. Softee; The Ding Dong truck that sold ice cream novelties; a old man and his wife who sold popcorn – really!; and the Roll Royce of ice cream trucks, the Good Humor Man.

What a buffet of options and if you had a dime you were in business. A quarter could send you into a sugar coma.

I never remember them coming around at night. Perhaps they did.

Fast forward a whole bunch of year – we have two regular ice cream trucks coming through the neighborhood with the worst recycling electronic jingles ever. I long for the day when a simple bell or buzzer was enough to alert the urchins.

Still every now and then I feel like running out to them with a quarter clutched in my hand only now it's more like $3!

© 2009 by Gordon Michael Dobbs