As I mentioned prior, in the coming weeks, I plan to blog about items and happenings from the ‘do you remember’ posts I see on Facebook. With that in mind, I may give a story from my own life regarding the items or happenings. Perhaps this will trigger a memory or two of your own.
Last blog I mentioned to take a moment to think about ice cream and running out to the truck for a treat on a hot summer day. One of the ‘do you remember’ posts I recently saw had to do with the ice cream truck ringing the bell or playing music as it traveled from street to street.
I lived in Chicago and also out in the suburbs. In the city, I remember a few different types of ice cream vendors. One was coming around in a big truck selling soft cones, I think it was Tastee Freeze or Mr. Softee; the other rode a large trike with a box of treats on the back; the third I recall and my favorite was the Good Humor Man. There was just something about the man in the white truck and white uniform that seemed so appealing. I don’t think I ever saw a stain on any of their uniforms. Good Humor offered a variety of delicious frozen items such as a Toasted Almond bar on a stick; the original chocolate and vanilla bar on a stick; ice cream sandwich and the one I enjoyed was a watermelon flavored frozen bar on a stick. Somehow it made those hot, humid summer evenings cool and refreshing.
One story that makes me chuckle about Good Humor did not occur during my childhood years, but when I graduated high school and began my first job. I still lived at home like many of my friends and had younger siblings like a few also. My half-sisters were ten and twelve years my junior. It was the summer after high school that the incident happened. I just got home from work (I commuted from the suburb where I lived to downtown Chicago). The total trip was over an hour. One evening I arrived home as the Good Humor Man began his slow drive down our street. My sisters wanted a treat but my mother was too busy to listen to their pleas; my step-grandmother was out someplace that evening. As I walked up our driveway they came running out to me begging me “please buy us ice cream’ they both cried. I thought well okay, why not. So I took them out to the curb and the truck stopped. It was then I got the shock of all shocks. The driver was not the typical older man who usually drove on our street but a young man of about twenty-two. In my opinion he was a hunk. My sisters got their treat and I asked the driver if he was the new driver in our area. He said, he worked our area during the summer now three days a week. (Yes I did get the days he would be in the area). I called one of my friends (she too had a sister nine years younger). Over the course of that summer on the days this hunk drove the truck, my sisters would get treated to a Good Humor product. My friend would come around to visit about the time the guy would be on our street and her sister also would get the benefit of a tasty treat. The driver thought my friend and I were just the best sisters ever in how we would make purchases for our younger siblings. If he only knew it was just a chance to see him.
My friend and I learned a lot about the driver during that summer. We found out he had a girlfriend; he was a college senior; a possible candidate for the draft. August arrived and the driver had left the employ of the Good Humor people to return to his last year of school
I always wondered if he caught on to the real reasoning behind the being nice to the younger siblings. If he did, he kept it to himself.
The days of the Good Humor Man, like the dinosaur are in the past. You can purchase their products now at the store along with a variety of other frozen favorites. A few years ago, I picked up a package of Good Humor bars, my husband enjoyed them; for me there was something missing. No doubt it was the fact I purchased them from the grocery store and not from the man in the spotless white uniform driving the white truck.
My grandkids will never know the thrill of standing on the curb, waving one little hand while the other tightly holds on to the money to pay for a summertime treat. Of course back in my day it costs less then a dollar for my siblings to enjoy a treat; no doubt today it would be five or more dollars.
Until next time…..try to remember those packs of candy cigarettes and those bubble gum cigars. Another interesting story from my younger years awaits you.
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