Ode to the ice cream man!
On days like this — the sweltering ones — I can almost hear the ice cream man rolling down the street to save the day.
In every neighborhood graced by an ice cream man’s visit, some kid played town crier on those hot summer days. “The ice cream man is coming” battle cry set off an alert in our minds that something epic was about to happen.
And it was.
The ice cream man was coming and he was carrying wonder on his truck.
Kids abandoned their jump ropes and kickball games to chase the ice cream man and his wondrous truck.
Decked out in a red leather suit for his 1983 stand-up special “Delirious,” Eddie Murphy famously joked about the frenzy that resulted when someone announced, “The ice cream man is coming.”
The joke was funny because it was true.
The ice cream man could stop time itself. Bikes dropped. Hiders and seekers called a truce.
Red Rover came on over.
Oh, the ice cream man, the purveyor of the sweet and sticky.
What a magical creature!
The sound of his truck coming down the street could calm a kid with a freshly bloodied knee.
Our hearts would leap as “The Entertainer” — the unmistakable piano jig Scott Joplin wrote way back in 1902 — blared from a truck decorated in pictures of Bomb Pops, fudge bars, ice cream sandwiches and Tweety Bird heads with gumball eyes.
You didn’t have to read. You only had to point. “I want that one, please.”
Anything in a cone was considered fancy.
The red, white and blue popsicles were as American as any apple pie.
Those orange sherbet-flavored push-up tubes might as well have been manna from heaven.
It was an economic and social etiquette lesson rolled into one.
In interactions that lasted only minutes, little kids with sugar cravings traded single dollar bills or coins from the bottom of their moms’ purses for pure melty joy.
The ice cream man helped you understand the value of a nickel like no teacher could.
From interactions with this ice cream man among men, even the smallest kid learned that a nickel is more than a penny, but less than a dime or a quarter.
Two quarters was enough for the world or a snow cone.
Everyone was equal and had to wait his or her turn.
No cutting, and don’t forget to get something for the little kids.
If there was crying, there was no ice cream.
The ice cream man seemingly had the freedom we all thought we wanted when we grew up: A) He drove a truck B) He was surrounded by ice cream
C) He was popular Of course, it wasn’t that simple in reality.
I know now that the ice cream man was actually a mortal with the problems that come along with being mortal.
Chances are he wasn’t rolling in cash.
Nickels and quarters from sweat-soaked little kids likely only got him so far.
Still, the ice cream man saved us from melting in the summer heat and from dying from sugar deficiency.
He was the hero we wanted and needed.
The world needs more of those.