Summer Dreams

The extreme temperature of my first memorable summer was unusually humid for our area of Indiana, driving the heat index up into almost the 100’s. There hadn’t been much rain that year and it showed. Mrs. Shultz from next door couldn’t keep her prize roses alive long enough to compete in the garden club’s annual floral competition but to her credit, most of the other gardeners in the area were experiencing worse issues than she was.

My mama was a Georgia girl, born and raised. Prior to falling in love with my dad and moving up north, she had spent her summers on a poor man’s farm in heat that made the local weather seem like a cool breeze. Naturally, our vegetable garden thrived when everyone else’s had withered with heat exhaustion. I remember walking by and swiping ripe tomatoes off the vine and eating them like other people ate apples. Mama had muscadines and scuppernongs growing over the back fence as far as the eye could see and I used to walk around scarfing whole handfuls at a time. We had strawberries, rhubarb, watermelon, potatoes, and all other manner of delicious growing things for the summer months and were the envy of all our neighbors.

I would love to say that my favorite summer food was something that my mama grew in her garden, but it wasn’t. If I’m honest about it, my mother did all the work in the garden and as a child, I kind of took all of that for granted. There was no work involved with picking something and eating it and it was succulent for a few seconds, then gone the next and I was back off to some little kid adventure.

Living in the neighborhood my parents moved us to that summer introduced me to something wonderful, something no amount of home-grown fruit or vegetable could compete with. I first learned of it one afternoon when my dad sat down on mom’s “hair-cutting” stool. She had the sheers out and was very carefully going over his hair with the trimmers. They were expecting my little sister at the time and mama’s round belly made it necessary for her to walk a short orbit around dad to make sure his hair was “just-so” in all directions. The moment she arrived at the front of my dad’s head and put the clippers to him, I heard the faint tinkling of something from somewhere far away. It was a magical, musical sound. I looked up from where I lay sprawled on the floor coloring, and tilted my head to one side to see if I could hear better.

Mom must have heard it, too. She was still clipping my dad’s hair when her gaze drifted to the living room and out of the big picture window. As she did this, it apparently occurred to her what that sound was. The clippers skipped across my dad’s head leaving a line in the middle of his hair followed by a series of morse-code-looking dashes as she let go of the tool in her hand and went running across the living room. She snatched her purse off the couch as she ran out the front door yelling…

“IT’S THE ICE CREAM MAN!”

I had no idea what she was talking about but I knew what ice cream was and I loved it! I jumped up to my feet, completely ignorant of my dad hopping up and down, swearing and yelling about mom “butchering” his hair, and ran as fast as I could to see what mom was so excited about. As my five-year-old feet clump-clump-clumped down the porch stairs, I could see mom running after a small, white, truck-van sort of looking thing. Her dress was loose and flowing behind her, making her purse kind of flap-flap against her big belly and her ankles were swollen from standing at my dad’s hair-cutting session, which I guess slowed her down, because I wasn’t far behind her. Finally realizing she was never going to catch him she yelled “STOP!”

The small vehicle slowed to a stop and mom caught up. In a few seconds I fell in next to her. She was huffing and puffing so loud she couldn’t talk and the ice cream man became concerned.

“Ma’am! You’re not about to have a baby, are you?”

Mom shook her head “no” and then in a few seconds caught her breath.

“I’m fine.” She managed between gasps for air. She wrestled her pocketbook to pull out a change purse. Yanking a few dollar-bills out of it, she ordered three fudgesicles and one Superstar. (For my dad). Then she looked over at me and said; “What would you like?”

The ice cream man scurried around in the truck getting mom’s order together while I looked over the menu. To ask a five-year-old which ice cream they want from a menu board as colorful and exhaustive as that one, is a level of torture I can’t even express. Sensing my dilemma, the old gentleman leaned out the window and smiled down at me.

“Do you like dreams?” He asked me. Of course, I nodded. I hadn’t become the Chatty-Cathy I eventually turned into yet and wasn’t too sure about talking to this guy.

“Well how would you like to try a “Dreamsicle”? His voice kind of “ooohed” and “ahhed” over the word making it sound heavenly. I rendered a bashful nod.

He handed me the Dreamsicle right before mom handed him the cash. As we headed back toward the house, mom was already opening the first of her fudgesicles. I was going to open mine, but she told me to wait until we got to the house. Naturally, I took off running home. As I sprinted up the front stairs, past my dad in his roll-cuffed jeans and white t-shirt, I tried not to look at the cavern running down the front of his head and bolted in the front door. I ran straight to the table, sat down and opened that ice cream.

I had never seen a food so pretty in my entire life! It was the softest shade of peachy orange, and it was just beginning to bead little bubbles of condensation. My parents came into the house giggling. Dad was undoing his Superstar popsicle while mom was cramming her second fudgsicle into her mouth. Dad giggled and told mom:

“You realize you’re going to give birth to a chocolate kid and I’m going to be bald the rest of the summer.”

Mom apologized then offered an idea.

“At least you’ll be cool?”

They both laughed. Once I realized they were both looking at me, I sat up in my chair. My dad came and sat down next to me.

“Give it a taste. I think you’ll like it.” He said.

Encouraged, I went ahead and bit into it even though I hated to see something so pretty disappear. The first bite was absolutely dreamy. I won’t ever forget that chill. I had gotten hotter running around after the truck and everything than I realized. Not only did the coolness of it quench a thirst I wasn’t aware of, the taste was unlike anything I’d ever eaten. It was sweet and tangy like an orange but had a creamy center, like smooth, vanilla ice cream. The two contrasts made my taste buds spring to life!

Before I knew what hit me, I was gobbling. My dad told me to slow down as he reached for the napkins on the table, but I couldn’t. The brain freeze was awful but I didn’t care. This was the greatest sensation of my life and I was absolutely in love with that Dreamsicle. The moment I realized that the popsicle was gone and there was nothing left of it on the stick, I filled to the brim with sadness.

My dad, was sitting there with his weird hair smiling and slurping his own popsicle. Mom was leaning in the doorway with her purse still slung over one shoulder and a couple of drops of fudgsicle on her blue plaid dress. I looked up at my dad with tears in my eyes.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” He said sitting up.

“It’s gone.” Is all I could say. My dad erupted into laughter. After a minute or two, he got ahold of himself and patted me on the hand.

“Maybe it’s time we start giving you some chores to do. If you do a couple little things around the house, we’ll give you an allowance, (some money), that you can use to buy your own ice cream once in a while. What do you think?”

“Yeah!” I answered.

“Great”. My mom chimed in from the doorway. “Now go clean your room and we’ll talk about allowances depending on how good of a job you do.”

I looked at dad first, who nodded in agreement rather than bail me out. Then I looked at the popsicle stick in my hand. I couldn’t get to my room fast enough.

Every time the ice cream man was in my neighborhood after that, I was lining up for a Dreamsicle. Over the years I’ve had other popsicles, but as soon as I see sunny days and start making plans for the summer, my freezer is full of the popsicle sorbets with the creamy vanilla insides. To me, the sound of the ice cream truck and the popsicle of my dreams is when I know summer is truly here.