Ice cream truck delivers smiles

SANDPOINT — In honor of Lost in the ‘50s weekend, I checked something off my bucket list that I’ve wanted to do since the real 1950s. I hopped aboard the ice cream truck for a ride around a few neighborhoods.

Abby Chavez has been steering her converted 1988 Chevy step van through local streets for the past 10 years. The bright, white vehicle with the playful bear on the side announces that the Sun Bear Ice Cream, Etc., truck has arrived. The strains of “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” coming out of the speaker on top send kids sprinting to the curb to flag it down.

The Sun Bear is a known commodity these days. That wasn’t the case when Chavez began making her rounds in the summer of 2005.

“When I first started, I’d drive by and people would scratch their heads,” she said.

What a difference a decade makes. Even on a cloudy and cool Tuesday afternoon, the truck is a kid magnet. Some young patrons just stroll out casually to stand at the end of the driveway. They are regular customers and, for the most part, Chavez knows what they’re going to buy before she comes to a full stop.

“A giant vanilla sandwich, please,” a boy in a ball cap and red shirt said. “Thanks!” he yelled over his shoulder as he grabbed his change and ran back inside.

Other customers are more effusive, such as the three brothers who jumped up and down as they waved their arms wildly overhead. Even from a block away, they didn’t escape the driver’s notice. As their mom waited in the background, the three pointed out their orders on the painted menu beside the window on the passenger side of the truck.

“Here’s my regular little girl,” said Chavez as she slowed down and pulled over for a blonde-haired, blue-eyed youngster waiting on the sidewalk.

“I’ll just have …,” the girl said, crouching down to take a leap and stab her finger toward an item high up on the menu, “ … that!”

Chavez didn’t need to see where the finger landed. Years of visual memory have engraved the menu items and their precise location into her brain.

“I don’t even have to look any more,” she said. “I know what it is by the way they point.”

Sun Bear Ice Cream, Etc., drives up and down the streets of Sandpoint, as well as routes through Dover, Ponderay and Kootenai, for 2-3 hours a day. This time of year, the route starts after school. In summer, the truck gets an earlier start.

The slow traversal reminds one of trolling for bass. You’re passing the time, enjoying the scenery when, “Bam!” Someone takes the bait. This time, it’s another group of wavers. The music shuts off, the truck stops and they walk up with money clenched in hand. The sale is for a Choco-Taco and a couple of cookie sandwiches, both of which are big favorites of the older kids. Younger customers, Chavez said, gravitate toward rainbow pushups and strawberry shortcake ice cream treats.

From my perch in the pilot’s seat, I can’t help but notice the looks of confusion and, in at least one case, mild annoyance at my presence in the truck. The reason, I soon learn, is that I have poached the domain of the giant plush polar bear that usually holds down this spot.

“Where’s the bear?” one boy asks, giving me a suspicious look in the side view mirror during a stop.

“He’s right here,” Chavez points out from the back. “We have a guest riding with us today.”

Only partially mollified, the kid takes his ice cream and throws me one more wary glance as he walks away.

As a kid, the sound of the ice cream truck - it was the Good Humor man in my neighborhood - was a melody sent from on high; the musical promise of a freezer full of goodies. What would it be like to climb inside, surrounded by ice cream, and hear that music all day long, I wondered. After less than an hour in the Sun Bear truck, I had my answer.

Ice cream truck drivers, it turns out, are made of sterner stuff than the rest of us. Even a rabid fan of “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” would buckle when the tune starts up for the umpteenth time in a row.

“I don’t really hear it any more,” said Chavez. “I kind of tune it out.

“But I do let the music blast,” she continued. “That way they can’t say they didn’t hear me coming. I’ve had a few complaints, but only about three of them over 10 years, so that’s a pretty good record.”

Besides, she explained, there are people who will complain about anything. Interspersed with the friendly folks who look up from their gardening or pop open the front door to smile and holler a greeting, there are those few dour individuals who watch the ice cream truck approach as if it was a hearse rolling up to give them a lift.

“I wave at everybody,” Chavez said. “Especially if they’re grumpy - then I wave even more.”

The driver also serves as a sort of benign police force as she makes her rounds, keeping an eye out for the wellbeing of children and letting law enforcement know when she sees anything out of the ordinary.

“I go by all the parks and stuff, so I report anyone who looks like they shouldn’t be there,” she said. “I called in one time and the police picked up a guy they had been looking for.”

While you might make a lot of friends driving an ice cream truck, you probably won’t find that it’s a path to great wealth, Chavez noted.

“I didn’t expect to make a lot of money doing this - and I don’t,” she said. “But I never made a difference doing anything I’d done before and, with this, I think I do make a little bit of a difference.”

It might come in the way she instructs kids to use their manners and thank mom for buying them a treat. Or the way she uses the transaction as a chance to practice math, requiring young customers to figure out what their change will be. Sometimes, not always, it comes in the way Chavez uses her tip money to buy ice cream for youngsters with no money.

“It’s a happy job,” she said, dropping the truck into drive and turning the music back on following another sale. “But I don’t even think of it as a job. If you do what you like, then what you do is not work.”

A few blocks later, I relinquish the passenger seat to its rightful bear. The white truck plods away, music wafting on the afternoon breeze. In my hand is the giant ice cream sandwich Chavez gave me as a parting gift. I smile when I see the Good Humor logo on the wrapper and realize that my kid wish has come true, 50 years or so after the fact.

Now, if I could just find a way to get “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” out of my head.