Our church is wooing us all to Wednesday night services this summer because summertime is usually when people are so busy with activities and vacations, they let church attendance slide. I am probably a Wednesday night person anyway, although sometimes I confess I'm just too tired to go. The theme is Summer Nights at GOC and a few of the events have included the BBQ brisket last week for July 4, snow cones, and the waterslides, splash pad and dunk tank a couple of weeks ago. Last night was "come for ice cream before church." The ice cream was fantastic - a very thick ice cream sandwich of chocolate chip cookies with over an inch of ice cream in between. I saved mine and drove home as fast as I could to share it with DH before it melted!! Made it!!
So the ice cream was delish and took me back on a sentimental journey of the ice cream we enjoyed as kids. Of course, there were the special times we had homemade ice cream and usually it was a group of us with our friends or family taking turns cranking the old ice cream maker and pouring in the rock salt to get the creamy mixture to harden.
The ordinary days were a few times during the week we were given a nickel to buy a fudgesickle or an orange sherbet push-up from the ice cream man.
Slurping it up outdoors with siblings!
The Buick belonged to my Grandad so we had company that Sunday,
along with cousins, Lonnie and Johnny.
Probably also meant Grandad and Granny treated us to the ice cream!
We didn't get the nickel every day and so on those off days, we stopped the ice cream man anyway to ask for free samples. Nope. He never had one for us until the day we were walking home from a friend's house many blocks away. The day was so very hot and when we heard the tinkling music of the ice cream man, my sister and I ran as fast as we could to find him. Although we had no money, we did find him and stopped him anyway to ask for a free sample. It was really kind of a running joke with us, but he had a tender spot in his heart that day for us and surprised us by saying, "yes"! He gave each of us an ice cream to enjoy the rest of our walk home. That little kindness is something I will always remember.
One time my sister and I and the boys across the street decided we would start a club. I'm not sure what the club was for, but we had to pay dues. So we took pop bottles to the store to sell and put the profit of a nickel each in the shoebox. (Pop bottles were worth two cents each so my sister and I ended up with a dime together.) The money had barely been in the shoebox for maybe an hour before we heard the dairy truck coming along. Now that dairy truck was really something special. He didn't just sell frozen treats. He sold things like ice cream cones and sundaes, shakes and so forth.
Looked something like this Dairy Dan Truck
and the ice cream cone looked very much like what this lady is holding!
So we made the quick decision to pool our nickels together and share an ice cream cone. We were a sight taking turns licking on and eating that ice cream cone that day! Can you say "gross"?
Our other special treat having to do with pop bottles was to take several bottles or a glass milk jug to the grocery store to redeem and then walk down to the drugstore and share a chocolate soda, which was then 20 cents! I still remember the cold air in the drugstore, sitting on those stools that twirled around and sharing the soda with my sister. What times we enjoyed in the summer. Just think. A nickel could buy happiness for a few minutes and 10 cents brought even more joy!! LOL! Now we think nothing of giving the grandkids amounts of money that I never dreamed of!
So what am I thankful for in this little trip down Memory Lane with ice cream? Just thankful to be alive! Thankful for my family! My friends! My memories of sweet times from my childhood and the parents I had and the way they modeled life and love through good times and bad and that I can appreciate the simple things of life each day and give thanks for all His blessings.
1
It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to the Most High.
2
It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning,
your faithfulness in the evening.
your faithfulness in the evening.
Psalm 92:1-2
6 comments:
Happy Thursday!
Hi Nonnie!!!! Ditto everything you said in your final paragraph!!! Especially about family and learning everything from them!!! Love your blog and your content! Hugs!
I LOVED your walk down memory lane. Such happy memories!! I lived out in the country where we didn't ever have an ice cream truck come, but I do remember hearing it apparently when I visited my cousins. However, my mother made a deal with me...if I would make my bed every day, I would get an "extra nickel" with my lunch money so that I could buy an ice cream after lunch at school. So you can bet that I made my bed every day so I could get that fudgesickle or eskimo pie or ice cream sandwich. Our family always made homemade ice cream for the 4th of July, which we still do now, except for this year, no one came to do that. I missed it, but not the work... LOL.
orange sherbet push-up... oh my goodness does that bring back memories! Do they still make those yummy things? Ice cream memories are special to me too! Back when it was a real treat to have ice cream. I love this post!
I enjoyed your post very much! My neighbor and I were just talking yesterday about all you could buy with one thin dime back in the day!!
We didn't have the ice cream truck, but we could walk to town to the soda fountain in the drug store! In the summer, our church would have an 'ice cream supper' after Sunday evening service sometimes, and people would bring their churns.
I loved the story of you growing up and eating ice cream. Two things strike me - how dressed up we used to be and how we appreciated what we got. You know what I mean? Love, sandie
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