David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published May 25, 2004

Get your money! The Ice Cream Man is coming!

A hot dog is better at the stadium. Popcorn is much more satisfying at the movies. Seafood is tastier at the beach, and nothing compares to a Fudgsicle from the Ice Cream Man.

I can ask my daughter five times to pick up her toys and she won't hear a word of it, but if the Ice Cream Man's truck is two miles away she can tune into the calliope's strains in seconds. Actually, it's not really a calliope anymore -- the music is electronic, as most music these days. For all I know, the Ice Cream Man may be using a ripped MP3.

Digitally encoded music aside, you simply cannot understate the magic and wonder the Ice Cream Man provides a young child. Think of it. You're 3 years old and the only to obtain ice cream is to beg Mom or Dad to buy it. Parents are the sole source of ice cream. They're practically a monopoly. As far as your 3-year-old mind is concerned, the federal government should step in and bust up this tyrannical ice cream cartel.

Then suddenly out of the suburban mist, comes a four-wheeled chariot to ice cream independence. He's a mythical soul whose only purpose in life is to make children happy. The Ice Cream Man's truck may be loud, it may need new brakes and it certainly could use a new muffler, but none of that matters to a toddler holding a sweaty dollar bill. The Ice Cream Man delivers ice cream. Everything else is of little importance.

The Ice Cream Man may be my daughter's ice cream dealer on the outside, but she still needs parents to close the deal. I'm sure Anna thinks the Ice Cream Man simply drives from neighborhood to neighborhood delivering ice cream and spreading good cheer, but you and I know the truth.

The Ice Cream Man must be paid, and a 3-year-old's finances are limited. Dad is still a vital part in this transaction. No Dad, no money. No money, no ice cream.

I say no to my kids with little hesitation. Saying yes often is easier, but I'd be doing them a disservice. A kid who grows up hearing yes all the time will expect that trend to continue. The trouble is that life deals you a lot more no's than yes's.

Saying no to the Ice Cream Man, however, is tough, particularly when there are other neighborhood urchins are nearby getting their ice cream fix. There's nothing worse in a 3-year-old's life than being the only kid on the block who didn't score a treat from the Ice Cream Man. In situations like those, I realize that some indulgences must be made.

So what'll it be today? So many choices.

There are many advantages to age, one of which is the wisdom that flashy, brightly colored ice cream treats usually aren't the tastiest, but I could never convince Anna of that. A 3-year-old wants glitzy ice cream, while I, a 33-year-old, know that true ice cream Nirvana lies among the humdrum-looking Klondike Bars, sherbet Push Ups, Creamsicles and Fudgsicles. You can add all the flash and gimmicks in the world to an ice cream bar, but you'll never reach the simple perfection of a Fudgsicle.

Oh sure, I've had my fair share of Snow Cones, Nutty Buddies, Hyper Stripes, Torpedo Cherry Pops, the red-white-and-blue rocket-shaped Firecracker Pop and even the tempting Screwball Cup with the bonus gumball at the bottom of the cone, and while those treats may satisfy our most rudimentary and basest ice cream instincts, the glitter soon fades. With age, maturity and experience comes Fudgsicle wisdom.

But wisdom doesn't come easily. The cookie sandwich was a hard lesson for me to learn. It looks so good on the Ice Cream Man's on-truck picture menu -- two home-baked cookies sandwiching a heaping helping of premium vanilla ice cream. Cookies and ice cream? How can you go wrong? And if you've got an extra 65 cents burning a hole in your pocket, you can spring for the "premium" cookie sandwich, the one with chocolate chips stuck along the ice cream's perimeter.

The trouble with the cookie sandwich is that neither the cookies nor the ice cream is all that great. If the cookies were good OR the ice cream was good, the sandwich would be a fine selection, but the cookies are freezer-burned to the point where they taste like cardboard, and the ice cream is that bland, tired style of vanilla that just lies there with no personality whatsoever.

It took me a few dozen cookie sandwiches, but I finally caught on.

But Anna's young. She hasn't caught on yet. She gets suckered into the brick-hard Snow Cone and flavorless Snoopy-shaped ice cream pop every time, and then when she gets tired of them, she invariably wants to trade for my Fudgsicle.

I'm trying to say no to that, too.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.