Even under the shade of the beach umbrella, the heat from the sand radiates and bakes us like a roasting chicken in a store front window. Perspiration trickles down my sides and I’m basting in the heat. Friendly chatter and a distant radio playing a ball game fill the air and the nearby waves lazily lap at the shore.
Any skin that touches the sand is immediately coated with crystalized discomfort. The bay is full of jellyfish so swimming is out of the question for now. It hasn’t rained in days. Weeks maybe. The jetties are covered with broken crab shell, clam shells, and the carcasses of unlucky jellyfish and fish that looked like their bodies were sucked out of their skin. Fish jerky, I guess.
I open my mouth and taste salt, dried seaweed, and the sea straw that accumulates at the high tide mark on the beach. There is no escape from this except to retreat back home where, without air conditioning, it wasn’t any better. At least there was an occasional breeze at the beach.
When all hope is lost, there’s a new sound in the distance. Bells. Too far away to be sure. Maybe it’s somebody’s wind chimes… no… no… I know that sound. It’s the ice cream truck with Vinnie at the wheel.
Vinnie was an interesting character. Slight of build and hunched over- I thought that was due to serving ice cream from a truck with a floor about waist high to the children flocking to the open window but it might have been something else. His white uniform with navy pin stripes was always spotless and clean. He had leathered skin and shoe polish black hair and mustache that nobody seemed to mind. He wore an old leather belt with a metal device on his hip that allowed easy and accurate access to change- pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters- when giving change.
I could see the top of his truck peeking over the saw grass as he approached and we’d start the journey to the parking lot. The hot sand was practically unbearable but the pressure treated lumber boardwalk was never too far away. The boardwalk was still hot on bare feet but tolerable. I imagined it must be how it felt to firewalk over coals. I reminded myself of the importance of not staying in one spot too long lest I leave the soles of my feet glued to the wood deck.
The tires announced his arrival by grinding into the gravel and the music from the loudspeaker attached to the roof remains one of the most joyful sounds I know. We’d race out to greet him as if he had someplace better to be.
Summers were spent barefoot and we didn’t wear the same feet in September that we began with in June so the harsh granite gravel beneath our feet barely mattered. And it felt good not to mind the discomfort.
When it was finally my turn at the counter, I’d order a black raspberry scoop on a sugar cone and quickly please before it melts. He’d wrap it in a napkin and hand it to me while I handed him the money and hoped there would be no change so I could get to business on the ice cream before it all melted away.
I marveled at the fact that it sat frozen but began turning to liquid the instant it was exposed to air. The ice cream was as magical as it was precious. Cold. Sweet. Smooth. Comforting. And messy. Even though I didn’t waste a moment starting to eat it, it was already running down over my fingers and hand. And sometimes down my arm.
I’d stand there in the shade with hips bent so as not to drip on my legs or swim suit and try to savor the experience without letting it all go to waste in a puddle at my feet. It was such a wonderful lesson to appreciate that some of the best things we’ll know in life do not last.
I felt a degree of satisfaction when the level of the ice cream was even with the cone because then, I could relax a little. Everything was contained. Until, that is, it started leaking out of the bottom of the cone. But I could worry about that later.
For now, I enjoyed the sweet soft ice cream combined with a bite of the crispy, brittle cone. I’d take a bite and turn the cone to ensure none of the treasure would escape.
Soon enough, the cone was gone, I’d walk down to the shore and wash off my hands in salt water, look out at all the people on the sand bars and the sun racing toward the horizon, and be completely oblivious to the fact that times like this are too rare and I’d revisit this very moment regularly for the rest of my life.