Childhood Memories of Summer
When I was a kid, no one in my family declined the invitation to take a car ride to get gas with my father. Particularly on a scorching day in late July or mid August.
Not then.
Not now.
Not ever.
We’d all pile into the family mobile, one by one. Dad. Mom. Brian. Little brother Mikey. Myself included. “Hail, hail! The gang’s all here,” or so my father would. It was he special way of saying everyone was included, from the chief straight on down through the file and ranks. I wonder if that was a quote from a movie or television show from his childhood long since past. The reference was lost on me. Despite that, it had a ring, like the bell to Pavlov’s dog.
I guess it was his catch phrase or something. He had quite a few of them, “Let’s get gas,” included.
The temperatures inside that vehicle could pull Hell to shame. I’m certain of that. The windows on that Chevy suburban didn’t exactly roll down. Rather they swung open, barely a few centimeters, on a hinge that was just as likely to pinch fingers as it was to mysteriously shut mid travel. My brother and I never bothered with the windows anyway. Too much trouble for too little travel. This created a wicked green house effect not even a tropical plant could endure.
Sweat cascaded down. Backs of legs were singed by pleather seats. We chocked on stale air. Who cared anyway. The sacrifice was well worth the immediate discomforts. After all, we were on a family outing to get gas.
The “gas station” (I guess that’s what you would call it in this context, though my father never used that word), was an ice cream shack off to the side of the highway. I never understood how my dad conjured the metaphor of gas equals ice cream. Probably some attempt at a corny joke. He was always cracking a pun or two any chance he could get. I guess this was opportunity to expand his repertoire of humorous expressions. No one dared question this comparison, especially not when ice cream was involved.
Like my dad’s jokes, the ice cream shack had a certain cheesiness about it. Classic hot rod cars and jeeps were parked around the perimeter. That might be pretty badass hadn’t the proprietors loaded these vehicles with oversized stuffed animals; the same ones you might expect not to win from the spin-the-wheel game at the Jersey boardwalk. Imagine a huge, plush Bugs Bunny driving a Mustang. The place was aptly named Campies.
The place was hokey to the max. Cheesy lawn ornaments, namely of the pink flamingo and garden gnome varieties. You could ride the mechanical pony for a quarter. Or, if that was to feminine, there was always the mechanical rocket ship for the more masculine. Their ice cream Sundays were named after popular TV shows. Note— the name had absolutely nothing to do with the actual flavor. Imagine walking up to the counter and ordering a “Bart Simpson,” or a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle”, “Fred Flintstone”, or “Al Bundy”.
I never ordered an Al Bundy… or a Quick Draw McGraw for that matter. Spiral upon spiral of soft ice cream was where it was at. My brothers and I would order the largest size offered off the menu, covered in sprinkles or coated with a candy shell.
Note—eating an ice cream cone of this magnitude required a fair amount of skill. Enough balance to prevent the cone from tipping over. Dexterity to lick the ice cream into shape, averting a dripping mess. And enough constitute to weather the occasional brain freeze. We had to finish the cone right there on the spot. To get back into the sweltering van would be sudden death. Game over.
Funny enough, for all the times we went out for “gas,” my dad never ate ice cream. He would just sit back on a fluorescent-colored park, smiling all the time. Satisfied. I suppose there are some things even better than ice cream. My father knew that way back when. Looking back over my childhood, I now know what he knew then.
Not then.
Not now.
Not ever.
We’d all pile into the family mobile, one by one. Dad. Mom. Brian. Little brother Mikey. Myself included. “Hail, hail! The gang’s all here,” or so my father would. It was he special way of saying everyone was included, from the chief straight on down through the file and ranks. I wonder if that was a quote from a movie or television show from his childhood long since past. The reference was lost on me. Despite that, it had a ring, like the bell to Pavlov’s dog.
I guess it was his catch phrase or something. He had quite a few of them, “Let’s get gas,” included.
The temperatures inside that vehicle could pull Hell to shame. I’m certain of that. The windows on that Chevy suburban didn’t exactly roll down. Rather they swung open, barely a few centimeters, on a hinge that was just as likely to pinch fingers as it was to mysteriously shut mid travel. My brother and I never bothered with the windows anyway. Too much trouble for too little travel. This created a wicked green house effect not even a tropical plant could endure.
Sweat cascaded down. Backs of legs were singed by pleather seats. We chocked on stale air. Who cared anyway. The sacrifice was well worth the immediate discomforts. After all, we were on a family outing to get gas.
The “gas station” (I guess that’s what you would call it in this context, though my father never used that word), was an ice cream shack off to the side of the highway. I never understood how my dad conjured the metaphor of gas equals ice cream. Probably some attempt at a corny joke. He was always cracking a pun or two any chance he could get. I guess this was opportunity to expand his repertoire of humorous expressions. No one dared question this comparison, especially not when ice cream was involved.
Like my dad’s jokes, the ice cream shack had a certain cheesiness about it. Classic hot rod cars and jeeps were parked around the perimeter. That might be pretty badass hadn’t the proprietors loaded these vehicles with oversized stuffed animals; the same ones you might expect not to win from the spin-the-wheel game at the Jersey boardwalk. Imagine a huge, plush Bugs Bunny driving a Mustang. The place was aptly named Campies.
The place was hokey to the max. Cheesy lawn ornaments, namely of the pink flamingo and garden gnome varieties. You could ride the mechanical pony for a quarter. Or, if that was to feminine, there was always the mechanical rocket ship for the more masculine. Their ice cream Sundays were named after popular TV shows. Note— the name had absolutely nothing to do with the actual flavor. Imagine walking up to the counter and ordering a “Bart Simpson,” or a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle”, “Fred Flintstone”, or “Al Bundy”.
I never ordered an Al Bundy… or a Quick Draw McGraw for that matter. Spiral upon spiral of soft ice cream was where it was at. My brothers and I would order the largest size offered off the menu, covered in sprinkles or coated with a candy shell.Note—eating an ice cream cone of this magnitude required a fair amount of skill. Enough balance to prevent the cone from tipping over. Dexterity to lick the ice cream into shape, averting a dripping mess. And enough constitute to weather the occasional brain freeze. We had to finish the cone right there on the spot. To get back into the sweltering van would be sudden death. Game over.
Funny enough, for all the times we went out for “gas,” my dad never ate ice cream. He would just sit back on a fluorescent-colored park, smiling all the time. Satisfied. I suppose there are some things even better than ice cream. My father knew that way back when. Looking back over my childhood, I now know what he knew then.
Tags:
Labels: personal memoir
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home