Mexican Ice Cream Trucks and "F" Words

I grew up in the "Mexican" part of town, which is kinda funny cause the small town where I grew up was something close to 90% Mexican but I grew up on one side of the freeway where all the billboards were in Spanish and English was a second language, for the most part. It was the south side of town so I was a sureno and it did seem like the people in our neighborhood made generally less money but everyone was good people so I guess it didn't matter to me. We also had the "projects" in our part of town, those cinder-block cheap-housing units where a lot of the cholos lived. They were all the same color and they were right next to the park where the gangs hung out, drank, smoked, and jumped new gang members in. My block was cool though. I grew up on a dead-end street where everyone knew everyone. I lived in my grandparents house and I thought I lived in the best neighborhood in town. I felt safe despite the nightly flyovers by the "ghetto birds" (funny name for the police helicopters looking for criminals). I never realized that we were poor I guess.

During the summers, I remember sitting on the porch with mi abuela in the late afternoons and hearing the little bells chiming. I would get so excited cause I knew that relief from the heat was coming down my street. I would call to my mom in the house, "Mom, here comes the ice cream man!". My mom was always down to buy us paletas. Paletas are the Mexican ice cream bars that are made with fruit and either water or milk. They use some familiar ice cream flavors but they also use some flavors that you can't get at Vons. Flavors like tamarindo, mango and lime are staples of Mexican ice cream but I always got the strawberry-water. So freakin good! Anyways, the guy would push his little cart down our street, ringing his little bell and that to me, was the ice cream man. My whole life to that point, the ice cream man walked behind a cart.

At some point, my mom moved clear to the other side of town. I suppose you could call it the good side of town. She had just moved in with her new boyfriend, who for the record, was a really good guy but I couldn't bring myself to leave my grandparents but since it was only 5 minutes away, I wasn't worried about not seeing my mom. So, the day she moved in was a very hot day. She moved into a neighborhood where not only did the houses NOT have bars over the windows, there was actually a family of gringos across the street! Coincidentally, they became life-long family friends. So, we're moving boxes from the trucks to the house and it's just me and my mom outside at this point. From down the street, I hear a faint music, getting slowly louder. It kinda reminds me of jacked up circus music. Kids are starting to come out of their houses. I see the truck pull up to the waiting kids and stop. Like some weird movie montage, I start to piece all the visual images together in my mind; kids waiting on their tiptoes with dollar bills, the guy in the truck leaning out the small side window, actual pictures of all the various ice creams in the shape of about 100 different cartoon characters. Okay, that last one should have sealed the deal but I think I was partially in shock. I mean, who the hell knew that ice cream came shaped like Bugs Bunny for God's sake. Well, before I knew it and before I even thought of censoring my emotions, I slowly but clearly say, "What the fuck is that?!" In a moment that should have been pure unadulterated joy for a 10-year old boy, discovering this new form of frozen dessert, I felt the strongest mix of fear, pain, and panic cause I realized that my mom was standing 6 inches from me. I closed my eyes, afraid to even turn towards her, expecting at any second to be smacked across the head hard enough to make me forget all the profanity in my vocabulary, in 2 languages. But it didn't come. When I sacked up enough to look up at my mom, she just smiled. "It's okay mijo...it's actually an ice cream truck".

Later on, still in a sugar daze from eating 3 ice creams, 2 Looney Tunes and 1 Mickey Mouse, my mom explained that in her new neighborhood, things might be a little different but good too. Different but good. I think that's something I never forgot. Oh, and I never forgot how to use the "F" word either. That was the first time I ever said it in front of my mom even though the kids at my school said it constantly. Those kindergartners sound like drunk sailors.

Now, in my adulthood, I prefer to buy my ice cream from the palateros. The fruit bars just taste better than a Ninja Turtle and the sheer hard work it takes to push a cart through the streets makes me appreciate what it took just to get it to me. Those guys work damn hard for little money so let me give you advice. When you do buy from the palatero, throw him an extra buck or just let him keep the change. You'll feel like a million bucks for a small measure of charity. Palateros rule.           FUCK ICE CREAM TRUCKS. Lazy asses.

Later homes
Big Happy