1919-2007

When I was a little girl, my father and I often spent summer afternoons chasing Good Humor ice cream trucks. For those of you too young to remember Good Humor ice cream, let me just say that for a mere 10 cents, you could purchase a little bit of frozen heaven. I recall, with almost painful nostalgia, the Orange Creamsicles and the Chocolate Eclair bars.

Daddy and I would ride around town for hours until we cornered a truck and then wasted a pleasant ten minutes debating the pros and cons of Toasted Almond vs. Candy Center Crunch bars.

In those days, supermarkets were grocery stores, which meant they were small and not very well stocked. My mother bought this humongous chest freezer so she wouldn't have to go food shopping every few days. Every six months or so, she would place an order with some wholesale supplier and fill that freezer with junk like liver, frozen Brussels sprouts, and liverwurst. My mother was a health food nut and I always wondered how she could have married my father, who refused to eat anything green.

Anyway, one summer day, when the freezer's contents were down to a few packages of peas and carrots, my father and I went on a Good Humor hunt.

When we corralled the truck underneath a bridge, Daddy looked at me, looked at the driver, and said "Follow us home, why don't you?"

Our little caravan arrived at our house, where Daddy had the driver back the truck up to the chest freezer and unload the entire contents of the truck on top of the peas and carrots. The freezer was really full, but we managed to slam it shut after consuming a bit of the overflow.

A few hours later, my mother came home and paid a visit to the freezer to procure some healthy delights for dinner.

I am really sorry that nobody had a camera to preserve, for all eternity, the priceless look on her face when she flipped open the freezer.

I have to say that my mother's personality ranged from merely cranky to intensely volcanic. She knew more curse words in more languages than anyone I have ever met, and trust me, Daddy and I heard all of them that afternoon.

The two of us just plastered goofy smiles on our faces and let her vent. Daddy and I spent a lovely summer wandering around the garden consuming more ice cream bars than most people eat in ten years.

No ice cream ever tasted as good as those Good Humors.

Daddy died last Saturday. He was 88.