"ICE CREAM MAN!!!" Remember when? Favorites?

The Jing A Ling man !!! I would run to the house...and get the money, race the other kiddies to the magic menu, and agonise over "what to get"..I DO remember a nice ice cream sandwich with RED wafers. I loved the tarts, the Push Ups, Dreamcicles? Orange with a lighter color inside, the toasted coconut, and a red white and blue bar, with a strange center. My popcicles always broke wrong. I am 58 now, and I wish the Jing A Ling man would come back. I don't remember for sure, but I do believe Red Skelton starred in "The Good Humor Man"
Those days were a lot more fun, because the population was lower. Now there is too much competition, and quality is sacrificed. A lot of Ice Cream just tastes artificial.

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Originally posted by chicagostyledog

. . . and the rag peddler with his horse drawn cart(my grandfather).

Mine, too.

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Originally posted by chicagostyledog

Buffalo's on Irving Park & Pulaski was a great north side ice cream parlor.

Buffalo was great. Many wonderful childhood memories.

On the south side, they had Gerties on 59th and Kedzie. It was there until around 1980ish. Excellent ice cream.

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Originally posted by Tiramisu

The Jing A Ling man !!! I would run to the house...and get the money, race the other kiddies to the magic menu, and agonise over "what to get"..I DO remember a nice ice cream sandwich with RED wafers. I loved the tarts, the Push Ups, Dreamcicles? Orange with a lighter color inside, the toasted coconut, and a red white and blue bar, with a strange center. My popcicles always broke wrong. I am 58 now, and I wish the Jing A Ling man would come back. I don't remember for sure, but I do believe Red Skelton starred in "The Good Humor Man"
Those days were a lot more fun, because the population was lower. Now there is too much competition, and quality is sacrificed. A lot of Ice Cream just tastes artificial.[/

I have been a fan of "The Good Humor Man" movie ever since I was a little kid. The movie was made in the very early 1950's and it starred Jack Carson

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Originally posted by carlton pierre

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Originally posted by Tony Bad

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Originally posted by jerseygirl127

majorly dating myself here-- i can remember being outside and being able to hear that "MR. SOFTY" music from a mile away

You aren't dating yourself...I hear that music outside my house almost every day in the summer! I also have the jingle on my computer...it plays when I get mail...much better than that "you've got mail" voice.

Here is a link to the file...

http://www.mistersoftee.com/softee_final.wav

Wow, I didn't know Mr Softee was still around. We had the Mr Softee truck on a daily basis and then a couple times a week there was a guy on a bicycly powerede ice cream cart that came by as well. I liked the orange push-ups as well. Like many of you haved remarked,
for me just reading about your experiences brought a smile to me.

My Dad was a Mister Softee truck driver back in the 1960's

Yes, and us good New Yawkas called them Guh Jumas!
Maybe Gun Juma Bahs...Yum

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Originally posted by Mosca

Yep, Good Humor is now owned by Unilever. It went to Jack & Jill, then someone else, then the same people who make Klondikes, then Breyer's, now Unilever.


Tom

"Hurry up, Mom, quick, give me a dime...he's gonna go!"
The Bear

Forget the ice cream man, I want the mexican guy with his cart full of fruit flavored popsicle type treats. Pineapple and watermelon were always my favorites.

EngineCapt, help me out here, what are these guys called?

MikeS.

Mike, could you be thinking of paleterias? That's what we call them here. Well, not the guys, but the Mexican ice cream pops that are SO incredibly good and very popular here in Texas. There's a shop in Abilene called Mary's Paleteria that is to die for.

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Originally posted by txtwister

Mike, could you be thinking of paleterias? That's what we call them here. Well, not the guys, but the Mexican ice cream pops that are SO incredibly good and very popular here in Texas. There's a shop in Abilene called Mary's Paleteria that is to die for.

I'm not familiar with that word. What I'm refering to are a water or juice based frozen bar. No dairy involved.

MikeS.

Growing up on Long Island in the late 50's & 60's, the Good Humor man was really part of the community. Charlie was our longtime Good Humor man- one year he went missing, and we had a substitute- Mike. All us kids were so upset, we refused to buy ice cream most of the summer (well, if nobody was looking...).
But the news spread like wildfire that first day when Charlie was not there: "Charlie got a piece of steel in his eye!" This was earth-shattering news in our young suburban world.
Charlie would let you ride on the truck and ring the bells, too. Today he would be arrested, I'm sure.

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Originally posted by rongmtek

Charlie would let you ride on the truck and ring the bells, too. Today he would be arrested, I'm sure.

Sad but true... Ah, for the good old days before all the lawsuits!

We had an ice cream man who came to our neighborhood back in the early '60's but I don't remember if it was Good Humor. I mainly remember always getting ice cream that came in a cylinder on a stick. The stick was attached to a disc at the bottom of the cylinder and as you ate your ice cream, you pushed it up the cylinder with the stick and it made an interesting sound-- sort of a loud version of the sound made when you pull a straw up and down through the little hole in the plastic lid of a drink in a large paper cup. I feel like they were called "Rockets". Anybody else remember this treat?

Hello, Diner-Lover,
There were a few different versions of this type of ice-cream. I do think Good Humor had one, and probably Mr. Softee, too. My neighborhood was very loyal to Good Humor, though- Mr. Softee was the enemy. Especially because of Charlie, whose story I told earlier.
Another invader was the JUDY ANN ice cream truck, which we considered not only a cheap imitation of GH, but a fly-by-night of dubious quality. The ice cream was often filled with bits of paper!
BTW, my dad spoke often of something called a Charlotte Russe (sp?), which was ice cream & cake in a paper cylinder that you pushed up, as you described. For him, as a Brooklyn kid in the 20's & 30's, that was the extra special treat to hope for. Pretty sure it cost a nickel, which was not so easy to come by.

*********************THE ICE CREAM HERO**********************************

Our ice cream guy, a Good Humour Man, was Bob. He was our hero. He drove a tricycle with the ice box up front...not easy covering several neighborhoods in such a contraption.

We welcomed his visits, whether we could afford to buy or not. Most memorable was a lesson in kindness he once gave. About 12 or so of us urchins had the requisite nickel or dime when he arrived one day. All except Mitchell. This was not good. So when Bob approached, Mitchell, who for some reason felt terribly ashamed at the situation that afternoon, ran up an alley and behind a garage, crying all the way.

Bob asked us what was wrong. We explained that Mitchell didn't have any money. With that, Bob took a toasted almond bar (among the most expensive) out of the box and charged up the driveway. We could hear Mitchell protesting. He didn't want the charity. He was so terribly ashamed and sad. But Bob explained how it was really just a loan. He could pay it back when he was big and rich.

Have you ever seen a crying, disappointed kid's tears turned to happiness? How the sun comes out and suddenly all is well with the world, how your faith in humanity is restored? Well, that was Mitchell's face.

Back in those days in Newark, N.J., miracles still occurred. We always hoped Bob would be graduated to a truck, instead of having to pedal that bike. So, when one day a few months later Bob turned the block in a spanking new truck, we had no doubt that those powers that be had paid back Mitchell's debt. Wherever you are, Bob...Thanks for the example.
The Bear

Great, heart-warming story, Bear-- Thanks!

My pleasure.
The Bear

Hey, Bear-
What a great story- and a startling comparison to today's self-involved world.
That hit the spot like a cold ice cream on a hot July day- thanks, Bear. I'm glad I was young back then, and I don't envy today's kids a bit. I'd rather have lived at a time when a guy like Bob would be remembered many years on than have all the I-pods in the world.
Ron

quote:

Originally posted by Diner-Lover
I mainly remember always getting ice cream that came in a cylinder on a stick. The stick was attached to a disc at the bottom of the cylinder and as you ate your ice cream, you pushed it up the cylinder with the stick and it made an interesting sound-- sort of a loud version of the sound made when you pull a straw up and down through the little hole in the plastic lid of a drink in a large paper cup. I feel like they were called "Rockets". Anybody else remember this treat?

Those were called pushups on the Good Humor truck, they very probably were marketed by other companies with different names. The Good Humor ones were orange sherbet, but I remember seeing red ones.

Tom

ScreenBear,

By the time I bought my truck, you couldn't do that. Not because you didn't want to, but because the next time you pulled up to that stop all the kids would be whining and crying and pretending they didn't have any money.

No kids in the truck, EVER. That was rule numero uno. You didn't break the barrier between vendor and customer. Not to mean you weren't friendly, but you maintained your role in the community.

I have some stories.

I started in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Brookline, a blue collar middle class neighborhood. It was early in the season, a slow, drizzly day in maybe early April, temps in the low 50s. I was waiting at a stop and a little girl came up to the truck with her littler brother; they were maybe 4 and 2. (I was driving an Econoline van; the earlier pickup trucks, called "jump trucks" because you jumped out at each stop, were being phased out. There were only one or two were left by '81.) I leaned out and said hi and asked what they'd like; the little girl held up about $400 in a wad of 50s and 100s and other bills and asked, "Is this enough money to get an ice cream? I want a cookie ice cream [most expensive] and give him a Purple Pirate [cheapest, 1/2 of a grape popsicle]."

I was still pretty new at being the Good Humor Man, but I knew something was fishy. I asked the girl where her mom was; "Inside sleeping." So I said, "Did she give you this money?" The girl nodded, but not convincingly. So I said, "Did you take this from her purse?" And the little girl nodded again. So I said, "OK. Here." I took a dollar, gave her 50 cents change, and gave her two Purple Pirates and said, "Go put that money back in your mom's purse. You can't get stuff without her knowing." Writing this I can see that I should have sent the kids back empty handed, but I figured I deserved something; another guy might have taken the money and given them a Cookie Sandwich and a Purple Pirate and driven away. I don't think I saw those kids ever again that summer. They might have moved, or Mom might have been anti-Ice Cream truck and that was their only chance, with Mom asleep.

I was in my late 20s and early 30s back then, in pretty good shape, 6'2" and I worked out all winter. I had my share of moms and teen girls come on to me. I have always lived a pretty square life; I never considered that part of my reality, looking for trouble that way. But the world was already a different place by then. After my first year I got a really good route, one that incorporated O'Hara Township and Fox Chapel (Fox Chapel is one of the richest suburbs in America). The kids there were much older than their years. I had one girl, maybe 14 or 15, show me a picture of herself on the beach at Cancun in a bikini, she looked like she was about 24! Holy crap, 25 years later I STILL remember that. "Danger Will Robinson!" blasting in my brain! Jeez. I went about my business, what do you do after that? I hope she turned out OK.

I can write more, if you want. Some of the guys who drove the trucks were normal; some of them were very strange. One guy, we called Spock, he ate heads of raw garlic because he hated people and wanted to stink on purpose, to keep them away. He used to be normal, but he got in a bad accident in the truck, rolled it and suffered brain damage, and turned into a wierdo.


Tom

Growing up in Levittown (Long Island) in the '50s and '60's, we had all sorts of ice cream trucks that regularly made the rounds in our neighborhood (the "R" section). There was Good Humor, of course, and also Bungalow Bar (with a bungalow-style roof on the truck), Judy Ann (said they sold French ice cream), and others I can't remember. But us kids' favorite was an indie named George--that was the name on his truck, and that was his name. He really liked kids, and it showed--we used to let other trucks go through and wait until George came through, and everyone on the street would swarm him. Then he stopped coming around, and soon there was a rumor, confirmed by an article in the Levittown Tribune, that he had suffered a fatal heart attack. We all missed him after that.

BTW, my favorite ice cream that George sold was the Cho-Cho--a chocolate malt ice cream pop.

Charlie

These are all such great stories they should be compiled in a book-- I'd definitely buy it.

And I'd love to hear more of Mosca's unique and entertaining memories!

I grew up with a tiny rural town as my address, but I didn't even live in it. My parents had (still have, but no longer live there) a horse and wheat farm about 4 miles out. There was no ice cream truck in the little town, population 282. All the farm kids were busy all summer haying and harvesting anyway.

When I was 9, I went to stay with my cousins in the big city for a week. My parents had told me repeatedly not to speak to strangers, ever! And NEVER take candy from a stranger! Those were the only admonishment I remember, so I was amazed when the ice cream truck came to the neighborhood and my cousins as well as the rest of the neighborhood kids flocked to it, chattering and grabbing the proffered treats. I wouldn't go near that truck or touch the ice cream.

I DID, however, go to the library. It was about 30 blocks from my aunt and uncle's house, and none of my cousins wanted to go that day. Having gone a couple of times with them, I figured I could find my own way. I did. It was on the trip BACK that I lost my way. I walked up and down unfamiliar streets for hours, tired but not worried, scrupulously ignoring any stranger who spoke to me.

Finally about dusk I spotted a honeysuckle vine on a streetside slope and knew it to be the one that my cousins rested near on their way home from the library! In a few minutes I was home. I had been gone almost the entire day and my aunt, who had a passel of street-smart kids who pretty much ran wild, hadn't even missed me.

But I never touched that strange man's ice cream!

Catherine

quote:

Originally posted by Mosca

Some of the guys who drove the trucks were normal; some of them were very strange. One guy, we called Spock, he ate heads of raw garlic because he hated people and wanted to stink on purpose, to keep them away. He used to be normal, but he got in a bad accident in the truck, rolled it and suffered brain damage, and turned into a wierdo.


Tom

---Too funny. well not really.. but I like the way you told that story.......

The Good Humor ice cream man would go down our driveway when in the neighborhood in Wilton, Ct. We were a family of five boys and an easy sell. My favorite and still is the Candy bar. It was a chocolate covered vanilla stick with a candy bar inside. It was one of those things where you would eat the coating and ice cream just to savor the candy bar on the inside. The gas station and 7/11 nearby both carry Good Humor, and I will still pick up one.

Where I live now, there are two competing trucks that roll around before dinner time. Seems like bad timing to me as you would think that it would kill the kids appetites. Then again, you need to look at the waistlines of some of these kids. One of the trucks carries soft serve, and I would get that except for its bad timing. Too early.

Somebody mentioned It's-It. Boy do I miss those. The chocoholic in me was always satisfied with their chocolate version.

mark

Chip Candy Crunch! The cake-covered candy center was the Chocolate Fudge Cake.

My last season in the truck was 1985, so memory is getting to me.

Oops, hit send too early...

I'll work on my memory, I'll have more. Some of what happened was funny, some was sad. It's a vantage point from which you can watch a neighborhood over a period of 5 years.

We had one ice cream guy, a black guy named Fud. That wasn't his real name of course. He got it as a little kid because he stuttered. Fud was about as straight arrow as a guy could be, never got in trouble.

The Good Humor distribution center in Pittsburgh is in Oakmont, right alongside the Allegheny River, and some guys rode the bus instead of driving back into the city after work (typically around 10PM). If you missed the bus in Oakmont, you had to cross the river and catch the last bus in Harmarville. Oh, and Oakmont and Harmar are pretty much white.

So Fud missed the bus in Oakmont because he was late getting back from his route (flat tire). He locked up his truck and plugged the freezer in, grabbed his bag of money and took off running over the bridge toward the Harmar bus stop... you can put the rest of the picture together yourself if you want. A black guy, running across the bridge in Oakmont, at 10:30 at night, with a money bag containing about $400 in change and small bills. And of course the local police were at that very moment cruising toward him.

I have to give the guy credit for not blowing his cool completely; I heard the story from him the next day, as he told about watching the bus go by in the distance, explaining over and over again who he was and what he was doing there at that time and why he was running and where the money was from, as they kept trying to get him to change his story. I don't remember where he spent the night, I think in his truck back at the garage. All he kept saying was, "But damn! I wasn't doing anything different than from what anyone else was doing!" And he knew that he couldn't say what he wanted to in front of the white guys, but we knew what he meant. Most of us white guys don't ever get that close a look at racism in action.

A year or two after that Fud converted to an Islamic cult, changed his name, and started wearing white robes. The group he joined wasn't like a real Muslim group; it was a Muslim group in the same way that the Branch Davidians were a Christian group. He gave his truck and all his posessions to his mosque, and for the next few years there were reports that it was carrying Muslims around the Hill District. I lost track of Fud then, we weren't "in the same social circle" at that point. I saw him once as a Muslim. He seemed OK. He explained to me about removing his worldly possessions and all that. I'm sure that a lot of his conversion was fueled by racial frustration.

I know that wasn't really a "food" or "ice cream" story, but it's one I remember pretty close to what happened. You don't always get to pick the order in which they come back.


Tom

Uncle Jimmy's ice cream truck in Trenton NJ. Who remembers this. My dad is Salvatore DeMaria and also known as Frank.
He sold ice cream in the Trenton area, I went with him a couple times and even got to ring the bells. He sold in the evening since it was his second job.
He wore his pressed black slacks, white shirt and black tie. He wore the changer on his belt.
Those were the days when they took pride in being the ice cream man.
Does anyone remember him? Send me a message at nandntodd@aol.com
Would love to hear from you. He will be turning 89 in April.

In the early 70s I lived in a rather up-scale South Shore of Long Island neighborhood.  The Good Humor Man used to pull right into my backyard (because that was most of the neighborhood kids played).  I also had a huge (for the neighborhood) vegetable garden and he would often trade me ice cream for veggies right out of the garden. 

I liked those red, white, and blue Rocket Pops or whatever they were called.  Also, the cups with the wooden spoon and a gumball at the bottom.

Andrea

AndreaB


I liked those red, white, and blue Rocket Pops or whatever they were called.  Also, the cups with the wooden spoon and a gumball at the bottom.

Andrea

Bomb pops, screwballs.