I have a memory. I am in my room in Oceanside, NY–I’m about 9 or 10 or maybe even 11. I remember the Beaches soundtrack playing on my low-grade tape player (or was it Dirty Dancing?) (and people wonder if homosexuality is genetic?); I remember my Apple IIgs sitting on my glossy beige desk; and I remember a large rectangular window that looked out on the street. West Waukena Avenue. Hey what’s that noise? It sounds like angel music; or a music box; or… it’s the ice cream truck!!
The ice cream truck is such an integral experience of childhood that if any of you didn’t have one growing up I’d find it perfectly acceptable for you to regress, dress like a toddler, and track one down in your nearest suburb. There’s no thrill like the thrill of running downstairs, yelling “mom! the ice cream truck’s here!” and darting out the door to make the most important decision of your day. And here it is:
This image is iconic. These choices haven’t changed over the course of my lifetime. I still remember my mom choosing the candy center crunch because of the chocolate in the middle. Dad, I think, liked the premium ice cream bar. Me? I always got the same thing–time and time again:
That’s the strawberry shortcake pop and it does for me what madelines did for Proust. Whisked back to those days of innocence, of summers spent at the public pool–the Oceanside Pool–where I flopped around the urine-saturated kiddie pool or risked death in the deep end of the adult pool. I remember our family forming a huddle around me so I could change my bathing suit; I remember cousins visiting and running to the snack bar in bare feet (ouch! ouch!) and them choosing Charleston Chews and me choosing my Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake pop. That perfect rectangle on a stick with a mysterious crunchy strawberry crumble on the outside: that’s what life’s all about.
Do you remember your flavor? What’s your Good Humor personality? I’m a Strawberry Shortcake man, through and through.
