Friday, April 18, 2025

Confessions of a Popsicle Pusher, Part 2

This column will stand alone, but here's Part 1. 

Letters of eclectic commentary featuring the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer and {Dana}a persistent hallucination and charming literary device.
  
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"My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate." -Thornton Wilder


Dear Gentlereaders, first, a rigger warning. This column mentions a product once called an Eskimo Pie, a cultural abomination that has since been remedied. 

The first time I made my living by peddling popsicles in the '80s and became a Good Humor Man Person, I had no idea that Good Humor was once an RBFD dating back to the 1920s, a former American institution that's now just another American brand, a product licensed to be manufactured and marketed by various and sundry firms who knows who, who knows where, and distributed here, there, and even way over there. 

{The Donald may have inadvertently put an end to that.}

That's why you might be familiar with the name Good Humor even if products bearing that name weren't widely available in stores and you had never actually seen a real Good Humor Ice Cream truck. 

The Good Humor Bar was invented by Harry Burt, owner of a candy store/ice cream parlor in downtown Youngstown, Ohio, a significant city of the Hooterville Ohio Metropolitan Area. As my millions of regular readers already know, I've been a temporary resident of Hooterville for the last 40 years.  

The original Good Humor bar was fundamentally an Eskimo Pie, a small chunk of vanilla ice cream coated with chocolate (which had already been invented and which in no way resembled a pie) with a significant twist. As the story goes, Burt's daughter thought that Eskimo Pies were messy to eat (I  agree), and he was inspired to produce a version that came on a stick, and thus invented the ice cream bar. 

Please don't start hyperventilating; the name's been changed to Edy's Pie because Eskimo is "...a term considered offensive by some for American InuitYupik, and Aleut peoples," according to Wikipedia. Nowadays, it also comes on a stick and looks less like a pie than ever. Go figure. 

Oh, and shame on those of you who immediately thought of at least one rude joke involving the term Edy's pie

Mr. Burt hung a set of sleigh bells on a dozen trucks and sold his new invention directly to his customers, thereby also inventing the ice cream truck. This was in the early 1920s. By the middle of the '30s, Good Humor "sales cars" were everywhere, driven by men in white uniforms who were subject to strict company Rules&Regs and three full days of training before being entrusted with a coin changer.  

By the 1950s, roughly 2,000 Good Humor trucks were roaming the streets of America, ringing their bells and being chased by neighborhood kids. There was even a mainstream movie, The Good Humor Man, an "American slapstick noir action comedy film" released in 1950.

(In case you're wondering, the first of those three goofy movies you're thinking of was released in 1978.)   

By the time I became a "Goody Bar" man person in the early '80s, commercials were running on TV advertising the fact that boxes of Good Humor bars could be had at your favorite supermarket (at prices street vendors couldn't match). Individual vending-sized bars were significantly larger, but try explaining that to a cash-strapped mom or dad.  
 

Regular readers are aware that I've been plagued with a tendency to be a day late and two (inflation-adjusted) dollars short in the course of my life with disturbing regularity.  

{Wait-wait-wait. What did you mean by a "real" Good Humor truck?}

If you see a Good Humor truck out and about, it's probably not a Good Humor truck. 

Back in the day, as they say, the company used to have fleets built to their exact specifications (the truck I eventually personally owned was one of those, a "step van" (think bread truck, made out of galvanized steel). You may encounter a truck that says Good Humor on the side and that features Good Humor bars, but it's unlikely to be one of the versions commissioned by Good Humor, which haven't been manufactured for quite some time.

Being a civilian, you're unlikely to know the difference, but an experienced driver who's driven a generic version of an ice cream truck...

{You mean old?}

An experienced driver knows that it's equivalent to a Cadillac vs. a Chevette. 

{They stopped making Chevettes in 1987.}

Thanks for the update, Dana. There are still a few around (both Chevettes and real Good Humor trucks), and there are restored "jump" trucks that were no longer produced after 1969 that you may encounter. They turn up at car shows and are used for marketing events. Properly restored, they can sell for better than 50k.

{I'll bite, what's a jump truck?}

The driver has to "jump" out of a cab and walk around to the back of the truck to serve customers out of "the box." When I first hooked up with Good Humor Pittsburgh, there was at least one of these still working the streets (HT: Courtney), but almost nobody wanted to use one. Who wants to have to keep getting in and out of the truck all day, not to mention being at the mercy of the kids when you do?



I took to being an ice cream man like the proverbial duck to water. By my last day, many years later, my feathers were turning grey and falling out and I couldn't wait to quit. But at first, I loved it. 

My first assigned route was Greentree, Pa, a Pittsburgh "borough" that shares a border with the city. In short order, I was "promoted" to a much more lucrative route that included various townships in the vicinity of the Pittsburgh airport out in the Western suburbs. 

Shout out to Moon township, where I made some good money and met some good people, particularly the ones I confess I sometimes partied with after work up in Mooncrest. There was a brief period of my life when I was living in a small town, Mars, Pa, and peddling popsicles in Moon Township

My quick "promotion" was simply due to the fact that I was reliable and showed up on time every day, recently showered, and was not prone to drama. There are legitimate reasons many people associate ice cream truck drivers with Cheech and Chong.    

I arrived when ice cream street vending was past its glory days and had begun its slow slide down a slippery (icy?) slope, and when America's industrial base was packing up and heading to East Asia. Rustbelt cities like Pittsburgh had begun rusting and were about to have some very grim years decades.

Big BUT...

Good Humor trucks were still a well-established Pittsburgh area tradition, and most people (me, anyway) didn't know how bad things were eventually going to get. 

And I had access to an up-to-date route book. 


Most civilians, and even most former ice cream truck drivers, unless they drove a Good Humor truck before Unilever turned Good Humor bars into just another global brand, don't know what a route book is, or rather was. 

When I took a geographic cure for a broken heart, mentioned in part one, and was briefly pushing popsicles in Austin, I found myself driving what I thought of as the generic ice cream truck. It was made out of aluminum and creaked as you drove down the road.

The freezer box worked about half as well as the one in a G.H. truck, and you might find yourself selling softened product by the end of the day in the Texas heat. They were manufactured by a company called International Mobiles in Boston that's no longer in business, as best I can tell. 

They probably manufactured more ice cream trucks than anybody, and there are, relatively speaking, many still around and are easy to spot if you know what to look for. 

{Route book?}

Oh, yeah. When I was a Goody Bar Man in Pittsburgh, all the "routes" were just that, well-established routes that could be followed by using a route book that supplied directions from the moment you pulled off of the company lot that including the best way to get to the area you were assigned, how to work it street by street, and how to find your way back again.  

Sometimes they mentioned where you should be by a certain time and/or came with tips pencilled in by someone who previously had worked that particular route. I assume this was a practice put in place when Good Humor was still serious about street vending. Irregardless, it was a common-sense practice that enabled newbies to extract maximum profits from a given area in short order...

As opposed to, 

Being assigned a given geographic area, having to find your way there, and then wandering around finding out where the kids were on your own, which was how my employer did things in Austin. I'm led to believe this was normal for most companies of any size. With enough trucks on the road, you could make money despite high driver turnover, high prices, and poor customer service. 

Which way was better, at least from a business perspective? The latter, I assume, given that it required much less work. From a quality of life perspective, not so much. Now that ice cream trucks and plenty of kids are no longer a daily feature of most neighborhoods, I guess it's a moot point.


This just in: I found a company online that operates soft ice cream dairy products, and pizza trucks, in a handful of New Jersey cities. 

"We always use premium ingredients and pair food with feel-good music and exceptional customer service!" 

"Premium Klipsch Outdoor Speakers." No brass bells (another feature of a real Good Humor truck) or even obnoxious electronic music box endlessly repeated renderings of Turkey in the Straw or The Entertainer.

Customers register with the company. They text you when they're headed to your area so you can place an order, and a bright and shiny, sanitized truck will come directly to your bright and shiny, sanitized house, Home Owners Association Rules&Regs permitting. 

It's all carefully/efficiently controlled via artificial intelligence software, and you can buy a franchise for as little as $300,000. 

To be continued... by popular demand, even though originally only two columns were planned.

Have an OK day, 
Colonel Cranky


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Saturday, April 5, 2025

Confessions of a Popsicle Pusher (Pt. 1)



Letters of eclectic commentary featuring the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer and {Dana}a persistent hallucination and charming literary device.
  
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"When I was a kid, I used to think, man, if I could ever afford all the ice cream I want to eat, that's as rich as I ever want to be." -Jimmy Dean


Dear Gentlereaders,
Now retired, my various and sundry attempts to create a career of some sort behind me, I admit to being an on-again, off-again popsicle pusher as my life happened while I was making other plans. 

Over the course of several decades: 

I was one of the group of Good Humor men persons who worked for Good Humor before they turned their backs on street vendors and became just another product line for globe-spanning Big Food firm Unilever. 

{Are you familiar with that Paul Simon song, Fifty Ways to Love Your Lever? I never thought he'd be a sellout.}     

- At one point, I leased a truck from a guy I used to call a wanna-be Goody Bar mogul behind his back (now deceased) whom I would seek out and apologize to if he were still around. Sorry, John. You're dreams didn't come true, but it wasn't for a lack of trying. My life has been much the same. 

- After taking a geographic cure to mend a busted heart brought on by a cute, blond girl next door type, I shrugged off my coma two years later in Austin (where I met my wife and daughter) and found myself managing a fleet of ice cream trucks and lo and behold, my testicles had grown back. 

Finally, I bought myself an ice cream truck that supported me and mine for nearly a decade (with the assistance of some really awful off-season jobs) before finally accepting the fact that ice cream street vending was on its last legs and got out while my sales were still healthy but my attitude was not.  

{You're not gonna mention that when you first started you had to deal with one or two apparently parentless kids a day and by the end you were fantasizing about bitch-slapping all sorts of high-functioning chimpanzees?}

Nope. 

{Nothing about attractive, well-maintained, lilly white mobile home parks out in the country sprinkled with pasty/pimpled teenage boys, gangster wannabes who talked like inner-city thugs, and teenage girls who talked and dressed like hos?}

Nope.

Hey, did you know that according to my research, the correct spelling of the plural form of the word ho is controversial? Is it Hoes? Hos? Even ho's? Who knows? I asked my favorite unbiased, neutral, nonjudgmental — but apparently woke — AI, Perplexity, which responded:

The slang term "ho" is often used derogatorily and is considered offensive. However, if you're asking about the plural form for educational or linguistic purposes, it would typically be "hos." This term is not commonly used in polite conversation due to its derogatory nature. It's important to be mindful of the language we use and its impact on others.

Sorry, Ma.


I became a popsicle pusher the same way most people do, accidentally, and like most people, I thought it was, at best, a temporary gig to keep the bills paid till a real job came along. I didn't know this was going to be a recurring pattern in my life.  

It also was a great summer job for college students (see "cute, blond girl next door type" above). 

It all began when I was the frozen food dude on a supermarket night-stock crew the night I had had enough of Ralphie's (the newly minted assistant manager who worked during the day with our fellow employees associates, whom we affectionately called daylight dicks) unfortunate tendency to wildly over order the weekly "specials" despite my pleas to the contrary, and my offer to order them myself. 

I took one look at the pallets of merchandise waiting for me to process and knew that trying to stuff all those specials (and have nightly access to them) into an already overloaded storage freezer was going to be a nightmare. 

Picture your basement freezer filled to the top, and something you must have is at the bottom, so you have to take out a ton of stuff to get to what you want. Now, multiply that by a hundred. 

I asked the amiable, well-meaning dope who ran the night stock crew to unlock the door, "I quit, you can find someplace to put all that overstock!"

"You can't..." 

"I just did, please unlock the door, or I'm gonna use one of the emergency exits."

WARNING! ALARM WILL SOUND!

{Well-meaning dope? That's not very nice.}

In my defense, I felt guilty once I calmed down...and celebrated. It was an awful place to work. Like Ralphie, he was also (technically) an assistant manager. However, once the evil owner and his equally evil store manager, Jim, determined that he wasn't evil, he was banished to running the night stock crew (10:30 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.) when the store was closed.

{Eight and a half hours?} 

The half-hour was for our unpaid lunch break. Our alleged union, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the only union I ever belonged to — "the union has had numerous problems in its national office and local unions with financial misdeeds" — was a dues-collecting scam in my opinion, but I drift. We were a notorious bunch of tough-to-supervise rebels and hard cases (as far as supermarket employees go), and getting everything done by morning was often a bit of a nightmare. 

I don't know if Jim was trying to get him to quit or go to the Dark Side.     


It was almost Spring, and there was an ad in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in the morning. I needed a job ASAP. I was completely self-supporting and any of my hard-earned income that was left after I paid my bills was spent on partying and/with the girlfriend I had at the time, the red-headed predecessor of the blond girl next door type mentioned above, the only woman I knew who could smoke as much weed as I could at the time.  

The Great White Fleet is Back On the Street! Good Humor Now Hiring!

{The great white fleet?}

The trucks were all white, Dana, not the drivers. Geesh. 

I loved it (at first), and that's how "Ice Cream Man" was added to my resume. FYI, you may have noticed the term Goody Bar above. In Pittsburgh, I can't speak of other locales, Good Humor ice cream bars were (are?) colloquially called Goody Bars, and a person who drove an ice cream truck was called a Goody Bar Man/Lady.  

For the record, this was still the Dark Ages, so the majority of drivers were toxic males, and yes ladies, they were trying to peer down your top from their elevated perch in the truck's serving window. In my defense, I always tried to be discreet. 

I know what you're thinking, but it's not true. I'm not aware of any female drivers who dressed in such a way as to exploit their physical charms for monetary gain... with the possible exception of a woman whose nickname was the Terry Cloth Princess and who liked to wear terry cloth jumpsuits that rode up her...

{I don't think you should go there.}

Nope.  


I will forever be grateful to Jackie, who taught me how to drive a "stick shift," or just a "stick," in about five minutes.

See, at the time, most Good Humor trucks were Ford Econoline Vans with "three on the tree". Those of you who aren't of a certain age may be unaware that three on the tree refers to a vehicle with a manual transmission with three gears accessed by a shift lever mounted on the steering column.

{What is this mysterious phenomenon you speak of, grandfather?}

Suffice it to say that the driver has three pedals to deal with: gas, brake, and clutch. The gas and clutch pedals must be properly worked together to keep from stalling the engine and/or making oneself look like a fool by causing said vehicle to lurch/pause/lurch/pause/lurch/pause when starting out. 

It's hard to explain; you have to have experienced a stick shift to truly grasp what I'm on about. 

My previous limited experiences with stick shifts had not gone well, and those were in ordinary cars. Jackie taught me to drive a full-sized commercial van with a stick, to reiterate, in about five minutes. I couldn't possibly explain to you how this is done, but I could show you. 

If we should ever happen to encounter each other in meatspace, gentlereader, feel free to ask. I'd be delighted to initiate you into the not-so-secret society of those who can confidently drive a stick, enjoy doing so, and enjoy looking down on anyone who cannot. 

{Is it true that there were a few trucks that had automatic transmissions, but they were all assigned to drivers who presented as female?}

Nope. 

Jackie, by the way, presented as female. That is to say, she was a woman, in the traditional sense. 

{But after all, what is a woman? Who's to say that...}

In addition to teaching me how to drive a stick-shifted ice cream truck, she administered my formal "classroom" training -- a brief film strip followed by a pretend test -- taught me how to read a "route book," and how to peddle popsicles in a company approved manner, all in record time.

I was out on my own, and making money with the help of my company-assigned coin changer, the very next day.  

To be continued...

Colonel Cranky


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Friday, March 21, 2025

Blue, Red, or Purple?

Image by Kinodel from Pixabay

Letters of eclectic commentary featuring the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer and {Dana}a persistent hallucination and charming literary device.
  
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"Government has to be cut back like asparagus... every day... or it gets away and goes to seed. Ours did. When there's too much of it, the flower becomes a weed." -Paul Harvey 


Dear Gentlereaders,
Now that, hopefully, I can't be locked up or even canceled for freely admitting that I smoked my fair share of pot when I was a twenty-something hippie with a job (and a nice apartment with a shower) permit me to share some thoughts on what it's like to live in a solid red state that has legalized smoking weed, Ohio.

{Cool, here we go again...}

Last time, I promise. But first, for the record and so you know where I'm coming from: I "self-identify" as center-right and anti-woke but I have certain notions that are classified as center-left by some people, and certain notions that are called far-right by other people.

Unlike Bill Clinton, I freely admit to inhaling. I'm certain that oral sex is sex and I know what the meaning of is, is. I think that he, the little Mrs, and their kid constitute a white-collar crime syndicate.  


(Hey, kids, if the previous paragraph leaves you baffled, you now know what all those old cranks who maintain that odds are you're getting/got a second-rate education at the hands of unionized school teachers are on about.)

{"We don't need no education."

Search term suggestions: Bill and/or Hillary and/or Chelsea Clinton, Slick Willie, the Clinton Foundation, Jeffrey Epstein.

{We got AI, get lost ya troll!} 

Now, having previously written, more than once in fact, about the ongoing marijuana mess created by the state legislature of the state where I've been temporarily living for the last forty years, what follows is just an update, all you really need to know about what up with weed in my corner of Flyoverland. 

If you're one of my millions of regular readers, you already know I don't like to link to previous columns about the same subject unless absolutely necessary for the sake of battling information overload (I'm cool like that). If you're not a regular reader, this is but one of the many reasons you should be.


In Ohio, a solidly red, thoroughly gerrymandered state from Lake Erie to the Ohio River, it's possible to place a "citizens initiative" on the ballot. That is to say, propose a law that will be put on the books if the voters of Ohio approve it — and if you can get around the powers that be if they don't want it on the ballot, but that's another story. 
      
The good news is that such an initiative was passed on 11/7/23, and smoking a weed that can relatively easily be grown at home, in the privacy of your home, is no longer against the law. 

I've not been a pothead for longer than many some of you have been alive, but I am aware that prohibiting the use of certain substances can cause more harm than good. A Khan Academy article about when America temporarily banned alcohol tells you everything you need to know. "Prohibition led directly to the rise of organized crime."

The bad news is the Ohio State Legislature can tinker with a citizen's initiative as much as they want, and of course, they do. Long story short, both the State Senate and House have recently introduced separate bills to modify things to their liking. The House mostly, with one important exception, wants to leave things alone, the Senate wants to increase the sin tax from 10 to 15%.

The Senate bill reduces the number of weeds you can grow yourself from 12 to 6 so that Granny won't try to beef up her fixed income by becoming a drug dealer so she can buy some eggs. You'd think an allegedly Republican state would encourage competition, but when it comes to weed, alcohol, and gambling they prefer to maintain control of the market.  

I may no longer be a pothead but I do have friends in low places and I'm led to believe it's possible to buy perfectly good weed on the street for less than you pay at authorized pot shops.   

Our five-foot-tall, 78-year-old governor's proposed budget doubles the sin tax to 20%. And yes, Ohio charges sales tax on weed. In fact, when we file our state income taxes, we're asked if we bought anything out of state that we need to pay Ohio sales taxes on.

{Seriously?}

Can't make this sh...tuff up, Dana.

{I wonder if anybody actually does?}

Off the top of my head, I can't remember which bill, perhaps both? forbids buying weed in another state and bringing it home. Think of all the lost sales tax revenue that could be collected when people rat themselves out when they file their state income taxes. 

Both bills definitely want to do away with divvying up sin tax revenues among various social programs, as specified in the original citizen-created and citizen-passed law, and dump the tax money into the general fund so that the esteemed statesmen statespersons of our full-time legislature can spend the money as they see fit.

I'm sure glad I don't live in an over-regulated, over-taxed blue state that's top-heavy with full-time legislators...

{As opposed to?}
 
Texas, the 8th or 9th largest economy on Earth, to which no shortage of blue state (and Ohio) refugees have fled in droves, which has no state income tax and a part-time legislature that gets together for 120 days every other year

{Yeah, but it's hot as Hades for 8 or 9 months out of the year. And isn't smoking weed still against the law?}

Yeah, but it's only a matter of time. The major metros have opted to decriminalize. 

For more details on the Ohio Marijuana mess, here's an article published by the Ohio Capital Journal titled Ohio Republicans <Republican politicians> claim voters didn't know what they were voting on when legalizing weed, that's both informative and accidentally hi-LAR-ious

Which brings us to Colorado. 

{Well, sure, obviously?}


Colorado ain't as blue as Ohio is red, yet, but it's getting there. I freely admit to not being an expert on Colorado politics, but I know it was one of the first states to legalize the sale of recreational weed more than a decade ago. 

As of 1/1/14, it was possible to buy weed, legally, from a weed store — as opposed to that sketchy-looking dude behind the 7-Eleven that a friend of a friend of yours swears is cool — in Boulder.  

However...

I went a-googlin' and it took about a literal minute to discover that what originally looked like plenty of legal weed for aficionados, plenty of profits for entrepreneurs, and plenty of tax revenue for both the state and local governments started petering out in about a metaphorical minute.

The Pike's Peak gold rush, 1858 to 1861, comes to mind. (Pike's Peak is in Colorado, kids.)

{"We don't need no education."}

There are lots of reasons for this, competition, both locally and nationally, is a prominent one. The one that I find the most interesting is sin taxes/over-regulation.

From the Wall Street Journal: "Colorado levies a 15% marijuana sales tax and 15% excise tax on marijuana, and Pueblo County tacks on another 5% excise tax and a 6% sales tax. Cannabis businesses in the city of Pueblo pay an additional 10% excise tax, among the highest in the state." 

"...every year the state adds more and more rules."

"The Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division said it is considering (my emphasis) proposals that would simplify rules for marijuana businesses."

Blue, Red, or Purple?

Colonel Cranky

Scroll down to comment, share my work, or scroll previous columns. I post links to my columns on my Facebook page so you can love me, hate me, or call for my cancellation/execution via social media. Cranky don't tweet (Xclaim?).

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