Oh, the Ice Cream Truck

I'm sure my memories of the ice cream man are not the same of my parents. I do believe the ice cream man was as well known as the mailman, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Growing up in Texas, I can remember the ice cream man coming down our street and always stopping right in front of our house. I think we must have been the hub for all the neighborhood kids. We used to keep spare change in a jar and every now and then if I wasn't already in bed, my mom would let me get something. But most of the time, I remember watching the neighborhood kids cashing out on popsicles around 7:30 or 8 at night. Yes, I was already in bed.

My kids don't know the ice cream man, yet.

Tonight was my first confrontation with him. Damn that ice cream man. We were at the pool and up he pulls blaring his the recent traditional ice cream man song: Scott Joplin's The Entertainer.

My kids stop and look. Inquisitive. Stunned. Suddenly they realize that out of this truck comes--none other than--ice cream. To my kids, I think its as if I suddenly discovered money grew on trees.

I hear my son say: Mom it's the ice cream truck. Look at that!

No, no, I tell him. He's not selling ice cream. Only broccoli and carrots. It's the farmer's market truck.

My son is no fool!

"No, mommy! Look, it's ice cream." I remember a friend telling me her mom had told her that the ice cream man played music only when he was out of ice cream. Cruel, yet clever.

We managed this time to bypass the ice cream man. But I imagine as my kids grow up, my days of making up fibs to avoid him are over. I imagine that we'll be keeping a jar of spare coins--or probably bills (I'm sure the price of ice cream coincides with the price of gas)--ready so we can dash out to meet him.