The Mom and Pop Store I Remember
Good Humor ice cream truck, Courtesy of the Library of Congress
At about the age of thirteen I started riding my bike town to play ball religiously. I brought what money I could scrounge up to buy ice cream at the mom and pop store a stone’s throw from the ball field. In front of the cash register the store had a Good Humor “free-standing freezer-cabinet.” This had to be around the 1970s because the company that distributed the product depended on those white Good Humour Trucks to sell it from the 1930s to the 1970s. Thereafter stores like the one in Croton-on-Hudson in Westchester County sold the ice cream out of freezer cabinets. For a quarter one could buy a Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake, Chocolate Éclair, or Toasted Almond ice cream bar on a wooden stick. Those bad boys were sensational! The thought of my next bike ride to play baseball kept me mowing lawns to earn enough chump chains for a toasted almond ice cream at the store.
