Burnt toes and ice-cream....

As I sat eating lunch with my now 18 year old son I suddenly detected the far off chiming of the ice cream truck.  On this sunny and warm Melbourne afternoon I was instantly transported back 45 years to the age of 7.

It is a hot hot summer, temperature in the 40s celsius.  All of the neighbourhood kids are running around outside on our front lawn cooling off under the sprinkler.  The squeals as the icy water spray hits us are ear piercing.  My parents and a neighbour are sitting on the back veranda.  We had been playing on the back lawn until they got sick of us.  Now we were out front.  This was back in the days were the word drought was foreign to me.  A time when garden hoses were on all night to water the lawn after the 3rd day of heat.  A time when we washed the concrete paths for hours and skated along the puddles in our bare feet till they bled.

It was an era when children gobbled down breakfast so we could escape outside for the day.  At some time in the middle of the day mothers would start bellowing to their various broods to come in for lunch and we would scatter with the promise of returning as quickly as possible to finish rescuing the princess in the cave (a tarp on a stick).

Then, like now, the sound of the icecream truck sent a frisson of delirious anticipation through every little body.  Precious seconds would be wasted trying to get a bearing on the truck to guess which end of the street it would be coming from and whether there was enough time to go and get the money.  Only one child from each family would make the sprint home while the other/s would keep lookout.

Barefoot and reckless we would all bolt towards home.  Yelping was inevitable as countless rocks and other debris would inevitably jab little feet.  But nothing would keep us from our mission.  I would charge into the house bellowing that the ice cream truck was coming and could we please please please have one.  It was a ritual.  My parents would say no, I would beg.  Eventually they would capitulate just as the sound of the truck became sooooo loud that it HAD to be outside our house by now.  I would hop from sore foot to sore foot.  I would run to get my mother's purse and she would take an age to fossick around for the coins.  I would look out of the living room window to see the line dwindling and my little brother anxiously waiting for me to return.

And then...horror of horrors, the truck would move off. My heart would sink.  My brother, only 4 years old would be crying on the street corner where we lived.  My mother would jangle the coins and then take another few crucial seconds to ask my father if he wanted one.  He did.  More precious seconds as she fished around for another coin.  The music got softer, the truck got further.  I was ready to cry.

And then...mercy of mercies, the music stops.  The music only stops when the truck stops.  More customers meant more time for me to catch up.  I am happy again.  With the coins safely in hand I take off forgetting my intention to grab some footwear so I could run faster.

Back out in the yard I see the truck just a few houses away on the opposite side of the street.   I run along the grass nature strip believing it would be easier on my feet and stomp on every prickle and thorny weed as I go.  By brother is sniffing just behind and oblivious to the pain in his tiny little feet.  We arrive level with the truck and now there is the hot, melting bitumen of the road to cross.  I don't even stop.  I leap out onto the road without even looking.  In those days there were so few cars about.  I land and feel the skin underfoot sizzle.  I scamper and hop across the road and make it to the window just as the last kid is walking away.  I have made it.  I order my 3 icecreams and hand over my money.

Now my 7 year old hands have to carry 3 ice cream cones that are already dripping.  My brother is on the other side of the street and won't cross no matter what I threaten him with.  I stand on the curb - hugging the 3 cones and getting my shirt sticky.  I brace myself knowing that I cannot run across the black lava this time.  So I rise up on my tip toes and walk as fast as I can.  This road is not smooth.  It has a lot of rock in it.  It is a nightmare of agony for about 15 seconds.  When I get to the other side I give my brother his ice cream even though I want to kick him and I hot foot it back home.

My last memory of this event was of my brother and I sitting on our front porch, licking icecream off fingers and t-shirt with my burnt feet on the cool grass.

So I sit at the kitchen table now and feel that same frisson envelop my 52 year old body and I must fight the urge to jump up and run.  I tell my son this little story. He laughs and says 'It's not even that good as ice cream mum, we have better stuff in the fridge".  He is right, but I just can't relax till the music, which has not changed in 50 years, fades away into the distance.   Today it is someone else's turn to burn their toes. 

I spend then next half hour humming the ice cream tune and trying to remember what it is called and which composer wrote it.  It is a classic that all young piano students have to learn.  I can't remember and it is driving me crazy.  I remember burnt toes and dripping icecream though.  Do you?

Ok it turns out my ice cream truck has class.  It is playing Beethoven's Fur Elise.  Now I am happy.