The Ice Cream Truck
The ice cream truck was here today! Wuz just enjoying the post-babecue rib glow a little after 8 pm (still bright outside -- hooray, summer is here!) and heard that familiar dun-de-dun-de-run-de-run musical theme. Jon quickly grabbed some change and queued up with the rest of the neighbourhood kids.
I looked out the window and saw Caitlin and the two girls followed by Jon, each with a cone in hand blissfully enjoying their treats.
Norm's ice cream truck marks the beginning of spring as much as the first robin or the sight of daffodil leaves thrusting through the soil. (It is a sad day in the fall when we all say goodbye to Norm for yet another season.) Part of the charm of our neighbourhood is the sight of children urgently dropping their usual play activities to line up for a soft vanilla cone or half vanilla/half chocolate (sometimes with sprinkles) at the first few notes of that annoying little ditty played by that truck. I thought at first that it was highly suspicious that Norm knew all the kids names by heart, but found it not so after discovering a) he knew the adults names, too, and b) his father owned the ice cream truck before him and inherited this route years ago.
When Norm's truck comes around, it heightens the Pleasantville feel of our neighbourhood -- that fifties feel -- when children played outside with no adult supervision, and neighbours knew and socialized with each other, and talked to each other over fence posts. One more look outside, and there's that scene again: children's bicycles abandoned in the middle of the street, Max, the cat, on a fence post intently watching a bushy tree, my husband strolling home licking an ice cream cone and chatting with the neighbours. Welcome to Pleasanville, 1952.
I looked out the window and saw Caitlin and the two girls followed by Jon, each with a cone in hand blissfully enjoying their treats.
Norm's ice cream truck marks the beginning of spring as much as the first robin or the sight of daffodil leaves thrusting through the soil. (It is a sad day in the fall when we all say goodbye to Norm for yet another season.) Part of the charm of our neighbourhood is the sight of children urgently dropping their usual play activities to line up for a soft vanilla cone or half vanilla/half chocolate (sometimes with sprinkles) at the first few notes of that annoying little ditty played by that truck. I thought at first that it was highly suspicious that Norm knew all the kids names by heart, but found it not so after discovering a) he knew the adults names, too, and b) his father owned the ice cream truck before him and inherited this route years ago.
When Norm's truck comes around, it heightens the Pleasantville feel of our neighbourhood -- that fifties feel -- when children played outside with no adult supervision, and neighbours knew and socialized with each other, and talked to each other over fence posts. One more look outside, and there's that scene again: children's bicycles abandoned in the middle of the street, Max, the cat, on a fence post intently watching a bushy tree, my husband strolling home licking an ice cream cone and chatting with the neighbours. Welcome to Pleasanville, 1952.
posted by Grace at
10:45 PM
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