Remember the Ice Cream Man?
June 17, 2009 by Marye Audet
Filed under Coffee News
I do. Back in the early 1960s air conditioning meant throwing open the windows. I swear you could hear the ring of the bells of the ice cream truck for miles. In fact, in our neighborhood, you could look out the window and see kids sitting there, waiting for the right moment to hit their mom’s up for some money.
You did this carefully. There was finesse and timing involved. If you did it too soon she would shake her head and say she didn’t hear any ice cream truck…but wait one minute too late and you couldn’t get there in time. You timed the quest for ice cream money as carefully as you timed a trip to the bathroom during Bonanza. Timing was everything.
So…you waited and the minute you could hear those bells clearly you made your pitch as earnestly as you could, eyes wide and innocent, fingers crossed behind your back for luck. A few beads of sweat on your forhead didn’t hurt. Then you rushed out the door and waited with the other lucky kids while the unlucky kids glared at you miserably from the sidelines, or sidled up to you hoping to get a lick.
When I saw this story in the Boston Globe it brought all of those memories back. Imagine, not an ice cream truck but a coffee truck. Not just any coffee truck but a truck holding artisan roasted coffees, top coffee technologies, and lots and lots of coffee.
A moment of silence please.
The brilliant mind behind this is Bob Weeks. He roasts his own coffee in 6 lb batches at his home. And apparently this is pretty darn good coffee. He then sells various coffee drinks to a variety of customers who are, no doubt, waiting impatiently for the sound of his truck…
This is so cool. And best of all? I have my own money now.
“Hey! Stop! Coffee Man!”…….
image:sxc (photoshopped by marye audet)
I can just imagine it…the Coffee Man driving his truck thru a tasteful upper-middle class neighborhood, streams of adults pouring out, running hectic across manicured lawns and jumping yew hedges, shouting, “Coffee Man! Coffee Man! Waaaaaiiit!!!”
The only thing I haven’t figured out yet is, does he ring a bell like the ice cream man did, or play music over speakers?
Exactly wendy….maybe he uses the muzak from the old maxwell house commercials..the one that sounded like a percolator?
Oh how I remember the ice cream man and the window fan. Although your reference to Bonanza might be obscure to some..:)
Coffee man. Like a mobile SB huh?
Yeah..thought I would have better luck naming Bonanza rather than Rat Patrol.
Hey, I know what bonanza is. I didn’t like it, but i know what it is.
I preffered the cartoons like Thunder Cats, thats all….
Hey, Where is this Coffee Truck? He’d make alot of money if he pitched this idea to the Ice cream truck people. I mean, come on, who wouldn’t pay for coffee to show up out of the blue in the middle of December?
I know, right?
I would love a coffee truck that would come around here. We have several ice cream trucks that come through here, but none that are the same as what I remember from growing up. Plus, the music is a whole lot worse.
Mike,
wouldnt it be cool, tho?