Tony, The Ice Cream Man
Among my most enjoyable memories of living on Aubert Avenue were the summer afternoons, when the heat and humidity of St. Louis prohibited playing hopscotch or jumping rope or roller skating on the sidewalk in front of the house; or walking to Cabanne library which was on Union Avenue and Cabanne Avenue, about a mile and a half from our house, with my sister Olympia, to borrow books by our favorite author Louisa May Alcott; or even just laying on the bed on the screened-in back porch.
Early afternoon was the best time to sit on the front porch with my sister Olympia, Bessie Laskaris, whose family lived in our flat upstairs and Alex John, our neighbor from the house next door. Bessie was two years older than Olympia, and Alex was a year older than me; it was girl time. It was fun to sit on our front porch, and do grown-up, lady-like things, embroidering pillow cases, crocheting doilies; or doing teen stuff, playing cards Solitaire or Seven Card Rummy or the board game of Monopoly. The boys did their own thing, my brothers Platon and Johnny were younger and playing in the back of the house, under the back porch, usually hammering away on some project of their own.
I secretly envied Bessie because she had the board game Monopoly, which had just been put on the market for sale, and everyone raved about it; besides she had several other games. When Bessie would bring out the Monopoly game, in her quiet and unassuming manner, the rest of us were pleased at the prospect of playing this newly popular game. We would childishly clap our hands, or exclaim happy thoughts at the arrival of the board game, and always loudly proclaim how each one of us would use our playing skill to buy the most property, or encourage our luck to bring forth the correct combination of plays so we could be the winner.
My siblings and I didn't have any board games. I wondered how Bessie could be so lucky to have games of her own. There was an older brother Nick, and Bessie, just two children in the family, whereas there were four of us, Olympia, Platon, Johnny and me.
My mother was usually home on those days of heat and humidity, because there was, as a rule, not much work for her at the cleaners during the summer months. Business was slow.
When Johnny was a toddler, Olympia and Bessie, on occasion, in the afternoon, would wash him, dress him up, put him into the wagon, and take him up and down Aubert Avenue.
On certain days as our little group, Bessie, Alex, Olympia and I sat on the broad front porch, which stretched across the front of the house, and was separated by a railing in the middle for the Constantinides and Laskaris sections, while we were occupied with quiet activities of handwork, or serious concentration focused on playing our board games or cards, a friendly and welcomed sight came into view. Down the street, at the corner, on our side of the street, a white painted, closed-in wooden cart, pulled by a horse, appeared. The horse wore a battered straw hat with two holes cut out in the brim for the horse's ears to go through. Leaning out the window of the cart was Tony Loutas!
Tony was Greek, a fact that I found quite interesting. Greek, and a vendor of my favorite treat, ice cream!
Tony was short, he had black hair, and always had a smile on his face, making his dark eyes laugh. My mother said Tony's wife was not Greek, and in my childish and innocent way, I tried to picture such an odd situation. His wife wasn't Greek? How could that be? All the Greek men my parents knew had wives who were Greek. Wasn't that always the case?
Tony was an entrepreneur, making and selling his own homemade ice cream. The price for a double dip ice cream cone was five cents. When one of us would spot Tony coming down the street, all activity ceased on the porch. Board game abandoned, embroidery and crocheting items left on the bench, as we ran into the house yelling, "Mom, mom, Tony the ice cream man is coming! Can we get some ice cream?" My mother usually tried to please us, and would give us a deep bowl to take to him. She preferred to get the ice cream in a bowl, instead of giving us a nickel each to get a cone, even though the amount of twenty-five cents for a bowl of ice cream was equal to what she would have paid for five cones. She felt we were getting more ice cream for the money if we got it in bulk rather than for individual cones.
My mother would hand the bowl to Olympia, who as the oldest was the most responsible one of the four of us, and my sister would carefully walk down the porch steps, cognizant of her important mission; then down the terrace steps to the sidewalk by the curb.
Slowly Tony's cart would make it's way down Aubert Avenue, sometimes making a stop or two before it reached our house. We would stand and patiently wait for him to arrive at our place by the curb. Olympia would shyly hand him the bowl. Tony, with a smile, would take the bowl and fill it to the brim with scoops of the different flavors of ice cream that he had. Again, with a smile on his face, he would hand Olympia the filled container. She would pay him twenty-five cents, and turn around carefully so as not to drop the bowl and mount the steps going up the terrace to the porch.
I wondered if Tony obliged my mother's request for bulk ice cream as a special gesture of accommodation for her, or if he also did this for other Greek patrons, or for anyone else who might request it.
The horse would stand quietly by the curb as Tony took care of filling his orders. Other children would come down to the cart, stare or encircle the horse, cautiously pat it on the rump, or stroke it on the neck and watch with awe and amusement as it switched it's tail to get rid of flies that were annoying it.
My mother would generously fill four small bowls with ice cream for each of us. She tried to give us a scoop of each flavor from the large container; but we weren't particular. No one demanded a certain flavor, or pushed, or argued. We knew we would each get the same amount of ice cream. My mother did not play favorites and treated us equally. We sat quietly at our place at the table, anticipating the delight of the next few minutes. My mother kept very little ice cream for herself. For a little while, as we were in the kitchen enjoying our ice cream, we forgot all about the activity we had been pursuing on the front porch before Tony came. As it was, when we left, Bessie and Alex had also left the front porch.
My brother Johnny, at the time when he was five or six years old, was thin. My parents felt he was a little too thin, and they should give him a little extra attention to help him to gain a little weight. Olympia and Platon remember that when my father would leave for work in the morning, he would specifically leave a nickel for Johnny to get an ice cream cone. Of course, my mother did not forget the rest of us.
Our cousin Marie remembers one time when she had a nickel and got an ice cream cone from Tony. The cone had the standard two scoops of ice cream. To her dismay, as she started to lick the top scoop, it slid off the cone and fell to the ground!
Tony's ice cream was always a treat for us to get because it was cheaper than the kind we bought at the drugstore fountain. Although Tony's ice cream was good, it was a little softer than the commercial variety. Regardless, it was a welcome treat, and for me, it made my day.
© 2003 by Jennie Constantinides Vlanton
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