The Sunday Memory Drawer - We All Scream for Ice Cream

Well, the season is almost here, so let's remember that centerpiece of any warm summer's evening. 

Ice cream.

In this vintage photo from the Mount Vernon Daily Argus newspaper, you'll see not me, but the kid brothers of my neighborhood best pal, Leo.  They are cashing in on a promotion at our favorite Carvel stand, which was located at the corner of 14th Avenue and First Street.  Free ice cream when it rained.

Examining this snapshot a bit more closely, note the attire on the two youngsters.  This ain't summer.  More likely a blustery day in March.  Nevertheless, it obviously had rained so cones were ready to be made.

Still, ice cream at the end of a long summer's day of play was the cherry on top of whatever sundae you were savoring.  In our neighborhood, we had several sources for these treats.

The Carvel stand above is now a Jamaican super market as our beloved neighborhood has literally and figuratively gone to pot.  But, back in the day, this is where you went for a "bigger" ice cream experience.  Made-to-order custard oozing out of the machine into your cone or plastic dish.  Get it covered with that special chocolate syrup and it would harden into a "Brown Bonnet."  Dump it into a boat-like container with a couple of bananas and you had your "Barge."  Cleopatra may have loved hers.  These usually made me sick.  The real ending of this snack on a long summer's day would be in a vomit flow into your toilet.

Now, this Carvel was located right next to "our stadium."  A vacant lot which was the location of our nightly baseball game with ground rules that defied logic.  Hit the sidewalk and you got a homerun.  Hit it further and you were out.  Carvel was in foul territory down the left field line.  Whoever went to retrieve that ball usually came back with a milk shake.  Okay, time out for refreshments.

My dad liked to frequent this Carvel when he was on vacation.  A hot fudge sundae with butter pecan ice cream was always his favorite.  Sometimes, Grandma would give me money.  All she wanted was a dish of vanilla, but I could buy something for myself, too.  Those were the kinds of errands that had pay-offs for an eight-year-old.

My mother?  She'd bring me to the stand for a treat, but rarely got anything for herself.  But, there was one day where Mom had another experience at our local Carvel.

When we arrived at the same window in the photo above, there was a big button set up on the counter.  Inside, there was a woman pretending to be a waitress/robot.  The sign said, "Press the button and the robot will serve you."

Huh, I thought?

My mom was a bit more realistic.

"What is this??  Candid Camera??"

The lady robot broke down into laughter.  My mother had outed them.  It sure was Candid Camera.  And that ended any chance we had to be laughed at on a Sunday night by Allen Funt.

Shortly thereafter, the Carvel signage came down and up went a new name for this place.

"La Creme."

Huh?

It was still the same ice cream stand, but now did not have the Carvel backing.  As I would later figure out years later when I did actually work for the Carvel Corporation, I'm guessing that, suddenly, the owners of this joint had balked at paying the price to be a "participating dealer."  Screw that, they probably said.  And, miraculously and almost mystically, they became French.

On really hot days, you needed that frozen feeling at multiple times of the day.  Leo and the rest of us would troop on down to Charlie's Delicatessen for what was then called a "Freez Pop."  It was nothing more than a clear plastic tube filled with flavored ice shavings.  You got your choice of cherry, lemon, blueberry, or orange.  Well, you didn't order them that way.  You identified your choice by color, instead.

The problem that this junk presented was that they were often re-frozen several times over whenever Charlie shut down his freezer.  The more they thawed and then were re-frozen, the more the flavor got crummy.  You'd suck the ice shavings into your mouth and promptly spit them into the gutter.  Or at whoever was pissing you off at the moment.

For a brief time, we had near us some establishment called "Luigi's Italian Ices."  I doubt the guy who ran it was either named Luigi or Italian.  Nevertheless, we all got into this concoction for a while.  The only problem was that Luigi's was located across First Street, a major thoroughfare of traffic.  If you really wanted that freakin' lemon ice, you had to dodge oncoming cars to get it.

I've written before here about our strange-o neighborhood guy named Louis.  Well, one day, his kid sister Toni Ann was making a Luigi's run and the traffic won that battle.  There is something completely unsettling for a nine-year-old when you hear screeching breaks in the distance and then...impact. 

Toni Ann was spread out all over First Street in a pool of blood and cherry ice.  She wound up in a coma for several weeks and then a wheelchair for the rest of whatever her days were.   On that afternoon, her life continued but effectively ended.

Nobody really bothered with Luigi's Italian Ices after that.

In another tale I've also told here before, the really special ice cream moment of every summer day was....

Well, here's what I wrote several years ago...

On any given summer night on 15th Avenue in Mount Vernon, you longed for 8:45PM. You'd hear the bells first on 13th Avenue and then 14th Avenue.

The Good Humor truck was coming.

It was like our nightly version of the River City folks in "The Music Man" waiting for the Wells Fargo wagon. You had the buck or so in your pocket since dinner. You were checking it every once in a while throughout the night. Between innings of your softball game. During a break in the action of Monopoly. In the middle of an insult assault being thrown at someone. You didn't want to come up empty at 8:44PM when the truck turned down our block

Our Good Humor man was a Black guy by the name of Coot. Lest you think that the name signified some old crony with tons of stories about the South, Coot was about 30 and nobody really knew how he got that name. Or was it a nickname? A mystery for the ages.

Coot pretty much always had a smile on his face, but I heard him utter only two phrases ever: "Whacha have?" and "Here ya go." This wasn't exactly Masterpiece Theater, but who cared as long as you got your designated nightly treat. My daily regimen of sugar/poison was the Chocolate Chip Candy stick. It was a regular chocolate-covered ice cream bar, but deep down in the center was a frozen chocolate bar. A challenge for the incisors, but so good.

At one point, Coot got a little competition. Some interloper driving a rival Bungalow Bar truck tried to undercut him by showing up an hour earlier. It was probably the first organized protest I was ever involved in. We boycotted this rat bastard, and gave major stinkeye to anybody who even dared run up to that truck with fifty cents in their hand. We even had a song dedicated to this inferior product.

"Bungalow Bar. Tastes like tar. The more you eat it, the sicker you are."

Message delivered. We kicked his ass over the city line and let him work the gremlins in the north Bronx.

There was another ill-fated attempt by somebody to claim our neighborhood as their own ice cream domain. 

That wretched Mister Softee. 

With that maniacal logo of some guy with an ice cream cone for a head. And that awful droning jingle that played over and over and over. But, of course, Mister Softee completely misread our marketplace. They would show up at 2:30 in the afternoon.

Puh-leze. Not ice cream time at all. The deranged conehead did not survive for long. But, it wasn't due to any moratorium conducted by the kids in the neighborhood. One day, this fat kid named Georgie fell in front of the truck and almost had a Phil Leotardo experience as the truck inched forward. He was pulled back at the very last minute, saving him from a truly ironic spin on the Mister Softee concept. After that, Mister Softee's tasty treat made a hasty retreat.

The winner and still champion. Coot! We'd even forgive his annual faux pas. We always went back to school the first week of September. That meant earlier bedtimes, a little homework, etc..

Nevertheless, Coot continued to show up at 845PM every night for at least two more weeks. We always sat in our respective homes, listening to the bells that went unanswered. Was he that out-of-tune with our lives? Oh, what the hell...

One Chocolate Chip Candy please.

Dinner last night:  Proscuitto and mozzarella panini at Fabiolus Cafe.