My 5-year-old can’t remember where she put her lovey a few minutes ago. But there’s nothing wrong with her long-term memory. She can recall the random park we stopped to eat at during a road trip to Indy — three road trips to Indy ago.
As we were driving to a friend’s house tonight, her 2-year-old sister, out of the blue, was pointing at a van and saying “Ice cream truck.” And so I wasn’t surprised when I heard my almost kindergartner say, “Mama? Do you remember when the ice cream man came?”
Sure, we’ve talked about it since then, so maybe it’s not so distant a memory. But it’s hard to believe that it’s been almost two years since that night, when I heard a sound I had never heard in six years living in this older Champaign neighborhood.
It was a sound that was magical. It was quite literally, the sound of summer I had read about in plenty of novels and seen on television. It was a sound that I want to remember hearing in my own childhood, but I can’t seem to decipher if that’s fact or fabrication.
I peaked out the front door window slats, suspicious yet optimistic. And sure enough, next door, there was an ice cream “truck” doling out some treats for the neighbors’ grandsons. It was an old beat-up van with stickers all over it and a very loud sound system that broadcast its presence to anyone who wanted it to be there.
We reached the van and me, giddier than my 3-year-old, surveyed the menu options. They ranged in price from $1.50 to $4. It was a wide range of goodies, and it was difficult to narrow it down. I decided on a cup of cookies’ n’ cream for us to share, and gleefully turned over the money.
As it turned out, I wasn’t seeing things — this really was this van’s first visit to Champaign. The college-aged guy driving the vehicle said he had come all the way from Springfield, and his company planned to visit Champaign-Urbana “a lot more” that summer.
We haven’t seen him since, or any other ice cream truck around these parts.
I keep hearing rumors that they exist and perhaps frequent other neighborhoods, newer subdivisions that have more kids than ours.
So, dear readers, please tell me. Have you seen an ice cream truck? And where? It’s time to make more special summer memories.
Laura Weisskopf Bleill is the co-founder and editor of chambanamoms.com. You can reach her at laura@chambanamoms(dot)com