The stuff dreamsicles are made of

Mondauk Common in Ambler is a beautiful park. I am a walker, averaging anywhere from 18 to 26 miles per week, weather and schedule permitting, and Mondauk is my park of choice in which to exercise. Plus, it’s only a mile from my office, which makes it quite convenient.
Oftentimes when I walk, I am deep in thought, reflecting on any number of things — the events of the day, the challenges of everyday life, my next column.
And then I hear the “Pop Goes the Weasel” tune. It’s the ice cream man, and that song triggers a Pavlovian response in me that stimulates an incredible urge to have a dreamsicle. (Ice cream inside a Popsicle. You folks out here call them creamsicles, but where I come from they were called dreamsicles.)
Back in the day in my rural Illinois neighborhood, the ice cream man used to ride a bicycle-like contraption with what appeared to be a mini-freezer attached to the front of the bike. We lived a few miles outside of town, and as a kid, I could never figure out if the ice cream man had ridden that freezer bike all the way out to the sticks from town — which would have been quite a bit of exercise — or if he trucked it out in a bigger vehicle, then rolled it out for shorter jaunts around the block.
Nevertheless, the neighborhoods kids would flock around the freezer bike and give up their quarters to the ice cream man in exchange for the tasty treats.
I understand why nowadays the ice creak truck hangs out at places like Mondauk Common. It’s where all the people congregate. And even though it takes more than a quarter these days to get a dreamsicle, today’s ice cream man elicits virtually the same response.
And even when I’m walking, when I hear “Pop Goes the Weasel,” I walk a little faster toward the sound of that song to see if I can catch up with a dreamsicle.