JIM “PAPPY” MOORE: Ice Cream! You Scream!

You probably grew up saying this. “Ice Cream! You Scream! We all scream for Ice Cream!” The kid in me has never quit yelling it. I like it, and I eat it every day.

When we were kids, the most reliable way to get ice cream was by buying an ice cream cone from The Ice Cream Truck which made its way throughout our neighborhood. It played its distinctive song loudly as it rolled slowly throughout the neighborhood, selling its ice cream to kids and adults who hankered for that delicious dairy treat.

I always favored the plain vanilla, smooth ice cream cones.

You could hear it before it came into sight. All about the neighborhood kids would rampage through their house, yelling “the ice cream truck is coming!!” The clarion call caused children of all ages to spring into action, looking for nickels and dimes, or even the occasional quarter.

First you checked your personal savings, which might run up to a dollar or more, all in change. There wouldn’t be a tax on it. The cost would be 5 cents or 10 cents. Kids would line up at the window when the Ice Cream Truck stopped.

You would check your own money first, or you might beg Mama or Daddy to give you a nickel or a dime to go treat yourself. If they were in a good mood, they might take out their Coin Purse and divvy up the funds needed. For a family such as ours, Daddy might give you a quarter and order you to “spend a nickel on each of you and bring the nickel in change back to me!” Back in those days before gentle parenting made such commands impossible without a ten minute give and take with a grade schooler over their rights, no child would turn down that deal.

Usually, all the kids would trot out to the Ice Cream Truck so each could stand in line and get their favorite ice cream treat. Then upon getting it, start licking it and take off to commiserate with friends in the street. Life was good back then. People had lives that did not include staring at a small screen they carried with them everywhere. They actually talked in person to everyone!

A second way to get ice cream back in the olden days was making it yourself. Home Made Ice Cream was awesome! You had an ice cream maker which had a metal cylinder large enough to make a goodly amount of ice cream. The basic ice cream was Vanilla, but you could make it in many varieties. Sometimes you would go to an Ice Cream Party where families would bring their ice cream making grinders and everyone would make ice cream at the house of the family hosting.

Imagine the families of people you know from church or neighborhood each bringing their ice cream maker, and everyone covering theirs with ice, and then people taking turns hand cranking the ice cream making cylinder until the ice cream was ready to eat.

While the ice cream making was taking place, kids would be running about, chasing fire flies, playing games like Red Rover Red Rover, as parents played 42 dominoes when they were not cranking that ice cream. In the end, you’d have a choice of Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, Peach, Pineapple, or maybe some other type. It was heavenly, and anyone who lived through that era knows it.

The women made the ice cream ingredients, usually, and the men cranked the ice cream makers, helped by boys who were old enough to do so, typically age 12 and over.

Life was good, and while ice cream could be bought at stores, for many of us we got most of our ice cream from either The Ice Cream Truck or Ice Cream Parties with families we knew and loved.

Eating ice cream reminds me of those days, and that’s one reason I still eat it every day.