What are your memories of ice cream vans/trucks rolling up in your street?

As a kid.
The grumpy looking guy rolled in our street with his Simca, towing the ice cream trailer.
He had to get out of the car, into the trailer, and there he stood, waiting for minutes at end, sometimes for nobody to show up.
Out of the trailer, back in the Simca again…
Just a few months a year (our summers being the short versions), once a week/fortnight.
No tune, just a big brass bell that you could hear three streets away.
Hearing the bell sound grow was the most exciting thing about the whole event.
Never bought no balls of him (we had a snackbar that sold ice cream, one street down).
Never saw a grumpier faced salesman since.
It was as if he was forced…

Lots of blackouts and waking up in the weeds a few towns away. It was adventurous!

I spent a few years in Toledo as a kid. There was one that made regular rounds. It was actually a nice truck that resembled the food trucks that are common today. Usually got one of those orange push pops if I was able to find enough loose change laying around the house. Mom worked and Dad was in school so we were more or less free-range during that time.

Ice cream trucks are still very much a thing here all summer long. The kids still do that panic and try to scrape up money and rush to catch it.

When I was a kid, there was one year the local driver would tear through the streets and stop for nobody. Rumor has it not a single kid had an ice cream that year.

Before or after the truck ran over a child?

Where I grew up, there was an ice cream truck (popsicles, actually) that drover over a kid and broke a couple of bones. After that happened, the town where I live passed a law that outlawed ice cream trucks.

In the incident I described above, they arrested the guy and found that his truck was way below all sorts of safety regulations and he didn’t have a peddlers license, so they put him out of business.

When I was little, it was the Good Humor truck. I was only allowed to get one kind of ice cream, and it was the vanilla pop with the hard shell. I don’t know what it’s called. All the kids would be at the Good ’;Humor truck. I don’t know what tune he played. It was just chimes. He was an old cranky type of guy with white uniform and a change belt. When I was little, in the early 70’s, it was probably, if I had to guess, a dime or a quarter for an ice cream pop.

Now there’s a Ben and Jerry’s truck in my neighborhood, in the summer. I don’t know what music his truck plays. There’s also one that comes to a local pool. It’s like 2 to 4 dollars now, for various things.

When I was younger, in New York near where @jca2 grew up, I also had the Good Humor truck come by with bells ringing.

When I moved to California, the truck only came through once in a while. It played “Turkey in the Straw” over and over.

The truck that came by when I was in my twenties got busted for selling cocaine.

We had a Good Humor truck & the same guy drove it for my entire childhood. I think he kept the route until he died & then his son took over. There wasn’t a particular song…just a jingle of chimes that could be heard from miles away. My dog knew how much we loved the ice cream man & at the first tink of the chimes she was barking & bouncing off the back door to tell us to get our money ready. She could hear the music long before we could. She also gave us enough warning that we were first in line on our street. Then we’d yell “ice cream” so the other kids could get their money ready!!!

I was a Fudgcicle fan & they only cost a nickle…yet my Mom carried on every tiime about how we were robbing her blind & didn’t even “need” a popcicle. She did that as she was handing us the money. I became very good at NOT hearing her rant, but I made sure to say THANK YOU!!!

My driver ALWAYS had a big smile & kind word even for the brats!!!

Is it too early to state that ice cream truck drivers are a bunch of salty, grumpy people?
So far I counted two grumpy, one guy that ran over a kid, and one that didn’t even stop for no one…

Edit: And a drug dealer…

In the early 1960s, I loved the ice cream truck! Besides ice cream our guy sold pre-ban M-80s and Cherry Bombs for $!.00 per dozen (That would be about $1 per piece in today’s money!)
They were spectacular!

My mom was cheap. I wasn’t allowed to get ice cream off the truck. She kept a gallon of ice cream in the freezer and said it was good enough to eat and was already paid for

The driver was gym rat who’d speed down the street.
You’d burn the future calories of the fudgesicle before you ate it. Win-win!

Our truck driver was arrested for selling drugs to the kiddies and that ended our hot summer night ice cream treats.

Good Humor truck, made on a Ford pick-up truck frame, no door on driver’s side.
They were made in the city I live in now.

Hackney Brothers Body Company made Good Humor ice cream trucks in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s.

Wow, they could write horror stories about some of these drivers :D

Over here the vans are custom made, mostly pink, clang out the Popeye tune & have a sign saying MIND THAT CHILD!

I recall great excitement when, streets away, us kids heard those bells chiming. So much more than ice cream cones & lollies on sale though, one guy even had cigarettes & porn magazines XD

They still come around all over the country, bit odd when It’s winter time & freezing out, but hey…It’s a living lol

When I was little, on the farm, I didn’t know about them until visiting my grandma in the summer.
That was when I learned the amazing power of a thin little dime. It could make me sit quietly for hours (but probably ten minutes). It could get me to cry. It could get me ice cream!!
I heard the tinkle sounds of kid music getting closer, and I asked what it was. Grandma, after raising six kids, did not have the sense to keep her mouth shut. I had to ask her what ice cream truck meant. Oh, the power. With dime in hand, I could get that truck to stop right in front of me and give me ice cream!
When my son was a toddler, we lived in San Jose. He understood that sometimes the truck would go by without seeing us, and was happy for the times I did go to the sound. Ice cream cost a lot more, so we shared. I’d get Nestle crunch. My son didn’t like the crunchy chocolate part, so I ate the outside first, and shared the inside with him. Good times.
In Omaha, the guy went y too quickly for me. My daughter would run outside. I taught her to stay back from the street and wave her money at him, and not approach the truck until he was stopped. He was a pretty nice guy. When he quit, we’d hear trucks on other streets, but none came down ours.
I’m not sure if she even eats ice cream anymore.

I never had money for that. Now, when the popsicle boy came by with those $.04 watersicles I usually could get that from mother. Sky blue was my favorite!