I was out in the garden yesterday afternoon. Weeding. Hating it. Jill was puttering around in the Ranger ATV dumping some branches she had picked up around the yard. She rolled up next to our garden and said, “What do you want from the ice cream man? I hear him coming up the road.”
Suddenly it was a Saturday afternoon in 1963 and I was standing on Grumman Avenue. Shirtless and barefoot. As I looked at the guys around me, I could see Chris Bowers, Ricky Bowers, Donnie Brown, Steve Moss and Danny Ives. Somewhere nearby are my brother, Eric, David Adams, LeeAnn Brown, Sue Brown and definitely my dog, Chipper. We’d just heard the Pinky Dinky Man’s truck coming, blaring carnival music through a busted speaker. I can remember throwing my homemade skateboard in the ditch beside the road and heading toward my house at a dead run, screaming, “ICE CREAM MAN, ICE CREAM MAN!” I would hit the door screaming for money, mom would tackle her purse, dig for change and hand it over. The entire transaction from cool mom hand to sweaty boy hand would take place in less than 20 seconds and I was back out the door, jumping off the stoop, through Don Brown’s hedge, over the ditch and standing beside the road with my brother and all the other huffing boys who had just shaken their moms up for pocket change. All of this happened before the truck was even in sight.
Yesterday, standing out in my garden and leaning on a rake, I watched my wife drive out toward the road. She got out of the Ranger as the ice cream truck rolled to a stop on the shoulder of the road. Even though she is tall enough now to look through the sliding service window into the eyes of the man who had just shifted the transmission into P and walked to the back to greet her, I could envision her, skinny-legged and barefoot with her wild hair blowing in the breeze at 10 years of age standing on her tiptoes and deciding what to get. I can’t really understand why this whole thing touched me like it did. I watched her dig some money out of her pocket and take possession of our ice cold treats. She got back in the Ranger and headed back my way.
I dropped the rake and met her in a patch of shade a few feet outside the garden and we opened our ice cream and told stories about our childhood and the ice cream man. The ice cream was sweet but the sight of Jill standing at that ice cream truck was the best thing that happened to me yesterday. You’ve just got to love memories like these.
Thanks Mike
Reading this account of the Ice Cream man just made my day! What happy memories…we had them in South Africa too, and while my memory doesnt go as far back as 1963!! the experience was pretty much the same as yours. Of course that was in the day when kids in SA COULD run freely and safely in the street. The music that we heard long before the van appeared was enough to get the butterflies of excitement flapping wildly in our stomachs!
Thanks for the memory reminder.
Sweet!
Sweet! And I’m not talking about the ice cold treats!!
Thank you for reminding me how important it is to focus on the sweetness of life.
Thanks for the memories! Although I was not old enough to stand on Grumman in 1963, I was a few years later and I am quite sure it was the same pinky dinky truck if not the same ice cream man!
Thanks for taking me back to a wonderful time! Creamsicle…or banana popsicle…so hard to choose!
Oh boy! do i remember. but then i was 16 when i heard my first
Pinky Dinky truck. we got our treats from the rolling store once a week
Mike, I’ve been told by newbies that this is the only place the PINKY DINKY was ever called by that name. I only wish the newer companies could use that name as well and continue the tradition. Thanks.
We called him the Pinky Dinky Man, too. I think it is a local thing.
Wow, Mike, haven’t thought about some of those guys in years! The Pink Dinky Man and Britt David Elementary – Thanks for the memories!!
WOW Mike, that takes me back. What a great story, thanks for sharing.
Sure does bring back fond memories of my childhood days in Waverly Terrace, those were the good old days!
Thank you, Mike.
It was Mr. Softee, back in my days in the 1960s in Ohio. In the summer, it was Grandma to whom we would run for the change to buy that precious, delicious ice cream cone.
Thanks for bringing back sweet memories.
Julius
Mike, my memories go a few years further back to the “chunky man” who pushed a white insulated hand cart with dry ice filled with 5 cent ice cream products. He blew a whistle that could be heard for a couple of blocks. The name came from a vanilla ice cream bar on a stick dipped in chocolate that we called a chunky. I don’t know where the name came from. Though he sold a variety of ice cream/Popsicle products, mostly from Kinnett’s, or Wells Dairy, he was known as the chunky man.
This brings back memories! Paula and I also bought ice cream from the Pinky Dinky man in Columbus. Our street Malatche Drive was a big hill and we would grab our money from my Daddy’s dresser and run down the hill when we heard the music from the truck. Of course, our Pinky Dinky man always managed to come right before supper time, so we did not always get to go for ice cream. Loved your memory too!
THE PINKY DINKY truck – wow! Such a great memory that I feel cooler already – and my a/c is out in half of my house. Thanks, Mike, and if you have never read “Dandelion Wine” by Ray Bradbury I know you would enjoy it. The writing evokes the same feeling of summertime, youth, fireflies and poignancy.
Mike,
Only a human soul endowed with eternity could flit through time like this and see this woman and this girl as a seamless whole. This was truly a moment of Grace for you… and now for us.
“The eternal mood, blowing the eternal theme,
Through men that pass.” CS Lewis
Blessings upon you, Mike.
Hugh
“Time is the moving image of eternity.” Plato
Mike, this piece, “Ice Cream Man!, Ice Cream Man!, is a Masterpiece! It must be among the finest things you’ve ever written. As I write this post, I am at work. After reading what you wrote, I had to leave the room to compose myself. I found this stunning. This is my very talented writer/cousin at his best.
I love the nuances here. You take us from the present to 1963 and then back to the present. We then are transported to see Jill at age 10; then we are back in the present. As I read through this work, I was really starting to struggle emotionally. Then…….the knockout punch. You just had to do it, didn’t you Mike! You had to make me read…”skinny-legged and barefoot with her wild hair blowing in the breeze at 10 years of age!” I was down for the count.
This is one of the best things I have read in a long, long time. It soars. Extraordinary! Trancendent!! I love you, cousin.
What a fabulously written piece Mikey. I was sweating with you in the garden … And could hear the pinky -dinky truck and the mad dash for cash was conveyed beautifully. I too loved the way you juxtaposed Jill now with the girl you imagined her to be….and I am sure she was. Evoking these kinds of visceral memories is one of your most wonderful talents, along with the articulate eloquence to take us on the journey. Well done my friend.
Thank you for writing this story and thank you John Wells for telling me it was here.
I live in Atlanta. I don’t get back to Columbus/Phenix City enough. The older I get, the more I enjoy coming down. However, my visits are usually for the day to visit sick relatives and yes, for funerals.
I was in Phenix City and heard that unmistakable Pinky Dinky music. I had to be dreaming. Then the truck came into view. It had to be the same truck that came out Old Auburn Rd in Phenix City 50yrs ago.
“Lord give away my clothes and please take me now because I have lost it”. No truck can last 50 years. Surely some young MBA would have come along and changed that music. I didn’t buy ice cream but I did touch the truck, just to make sure that I should still be allowed to drive a car.
My youngest son was coming back from PC Beach and stopped off to treat the girl with him to a Scrambled Dog. I got a call. Dad, I’m at Dinglewood and LT is leaning on the counter, laddling chili. I said he can’t be! I had heard the mayor, the governor, the President, and two or three kings had a big retirement thing for him quite a while back.
Is LT serving at Dinglewood Pharmacy again?
Tomy Kelly
Mike, thanks for bring back not just great ole memories, but current ones also. We have a Pinky Dinky Man that comes thru our neighborhood. And it’s always fun to watch the kids meet his truck for some good ole fashion ice cream and other treats.
Thanks for the memories.
Take Care
Mike, this was truly transcendent. Although you didn’t call us by name, every single one of us was in the knot of sweaty kids clammering at the truck for our treats. Clutching our coins, squinting against the sun & gnats, the hot buzz of cicadas rising. WhatamIgonnahave??? Fudgesciclebombpopcreamsiclenuttybuddy ??? Didn’t matter; in those moments we were lottery lucky. We all share that, hooray, but who among us can claim our beloved sees us with the eyes of childhood, & is wise enough to be enchanted by the vision? If a quarter for ice cream on a stick made us rich, Jill surely owns the moon. xo
I too have fond memories of the Pinky Dinky Man. My mother would have change ready for us every day. Thanks for reminding me of this.
Even now I can hear the ice cream truck in our area, but he never comes down our road since it’s marked “Private Property”. I wish I could find him and get him to come when the girls are here. They have heard the music too and asked what it was.
I remember the Pinky Dinky very well. I lived in Columbus from 1964 (birth)-1975. I can still hear the Pinky Dinky song. It was Bicycle Built For Two.
I’m 49 now, and live about 30 miles east of Columbus, but I’ll never forget how every kid in the neighborhood would run to their homes to ask mama for money to buy a treat from the Pinky Dinky man.
I remember my old dog Doby hopping on the Pinky Dinky truck one summer afternoon while it was parked outside our house.
Anyone remember Eagle Pops? If you opened your lollypop and found a white eagle printed on it, you got a second pop for free.
The Pinky Dinky sold ice cream, popsicles, candy of all sorts, and cotton candy. Remember those giant plastic pixie sticks?
My heart aches to return to those simpler times. Oh what I wouldn’t give to be a kid again, to re-experience one of those long lost innocents days from forty summers ago.
Thanks for the memories, everyone.
I remember the Pinky Dinky Truck. I’ve been telling my family about it for years, usually every summer.
I’ve been in Jacksonville,Fl. for over 35 yrs. I lived in the Kingston area out near Billy Ray Park.
My grandparents lived in Bibb City. It’s just like you say, The Pinky Dinky Man could get you running.I remember how thick the walls were on that truck. How the cold would pour out when the little door opened.
Thanks for writing about it, it brought back some real nice memories.
I miss Columbus and I miss the Pinky Dinky Man