Money is money...

There are certain sounds or smells that bring back childhood memories. Some of them are season specific – one of those is the ice cream truck. Everywhere we’ve ever lived, except out in the country, an ice cream truck always came down our street on summer afternoons.

Ice cream was a treat for us. It wasn’t something that you could find in the freezer any time you wanted some. The refrigerators we had in the 50’s didn’t really have a freezer compartment. All they had was a small section for the ice trays. Now there’s another relic of bygone days – the ice tray! So when the ice cream truck came down the street, all the kids lined up to buy their favorite treat. We didn’t get ice cream everyday. Money was tight, what with three kids, college, etc.

Bob especially loved ice cream. I remember him crying if it was a day that we didn’t get to buy any. One day after we had been told that there wasn’t money to buy ice cream, Bob and a couple of his little friends (they were about 3 years old) showed up happily eating their popcycles. Mother asked them who bought the ice cream for them and Bob proudly announced that he did. When Mother asked him how he paid for them, he told her he used money, which was very interesting because Bob didn’t have any money. Or so we thought.

Further investigation brought to light that the money Bob had used for the purchase was play money I had in a toy cash register. Obviously the ice cream man knew that it would be useless trying to explain to a three-year-old the difference between real and play money. So he very kindly “sold” them their ice cream. Mother tried to pay the ice cream man the next day with real money but he refused to take it.

So, thanks to Bob, we got ice cream that day! The play money disappeared after that and Mother wouldn’t let us buy any more – ever! But that was just the beginning of Bob’s wheeling and dealing – he has always gotten the best prices on things!