Good Humor or just a bad joke?

They other day I was walking near the Shanghai International Financial Center (IFC). It was about 32ºC outside and so humid I needed an aqualung.

Slowly, a familiar tune fades up.

At first I kissed it off as a delusion of grandeur (something I feel quite lucky to have at my disposal while immersed in reality). I listened harder for the distant song and it sounded like the Disney classic "It's a small world". The music soon faded just as it had appeared and left me thinking "Hmmm, maybe we do share a few traditions with the Chinese, like just maybe the Good Humor Man (GHM)!"

The thought of a Chinese Good Humor truck amused me, picture it. A truck wallpapered with Chinese calligraphy and pictures of off-the-hook ice cream creations. There's something that vaguely resembles a Good Humor logo, and a 52 year-old American male running it down, trying to communicate with a Chinese GHM. Luckily the real deal closers are the pictures. Problem is the GHM is inside the truck thinking in Chinese and I'm outside the truck pointing at picture he can't see screaming in English. Who needs undecipherable Chinese calligraphy when you've got pictures? (Do you recognize an art director at heart in any language?)

Eardrums deep in a Dolby Surround sound daydream full of Good Humor baggage I'm floating.

I can't begin tell you how many times the GHM saved me. It started with my earliest memories at about age three or four. Occasionally, on summer Saturday evenings the GHM would show up to the dread of my parents right at bed time. My sisters and I did the ice cream dance and ran like hell for the door. If we were lucky we beat our dad to it, if we actually made it outside the house, it meant we would probably get the prize. (Those were the days before everyone gets an ice cream.) It generally required a little white lie to the GHM "please gimme one o' doze" as I pointed to a picture of a Strawberry Shortcake (words didn't mean much to me then either) while looking over my shoulder. He gave me a Chocolate Éclair. I had to hurry and stake my claim so I bit into the treat wrapper and all. I spit out "my mom and dad said it's OK" along with a mouth full of the coveted Éclair, "they're bwinging the money now".

What red-faced parent is going to tell a sticky four year old to put it back?

The most significant save at the hands of the GHM came in 2007 at Rockefeller Plaza. We were visiting NYC for the US Open Tennis Tournament and it was my evening to stay in the city with K8 (then 7 years old). After a nice Italian dinner, mmmm spaghetti, we'd been walking in 10 block circles for 2 hours trying to find the American Girl flagship store (conveniently camouflaged by a gigantic construction scaffolding a mere two blocks from where we started). On top of that I was sure I had a severe case of food poisoning, which actually turned out to be a 7mm kidney stone. Anyway, at the height of K8's anxiety and my "food poising" I finally talked her into an ice cream, never mind that I had no idea where the nearest Coldstone was. It sounded like the narcotic we both needed to kill all pains. As we sat at the east entrance to Rockefeller Center awaiting our second wind, out of nowhere a GHM pulls up accompanied by the Vienna Boys Choir's rendition of Hallelujah (' wish I was cool enough to have heard Leonard Cohn's version – C'est La Vie). Had I not been feeling like my intestines were destined for 5th Avenue I would have done the ice cream dance right there. 

My point: I have a place in my heart and right kidney for the GHM and the jones ain't gonna stop till the real thing hits the spot.

As time passed, my appetite hijacked my mind, each day of the week became known as Sunday – on a stick. Drumsticks even crept into the mix (a good jones transcends brands). And what about Toasted Almond?

Then yesterday I'm measuring the balcony to see what kind of dollhouse furniture might fit and there it was, that Mickey Mouse tune again. I thought "cool". I'm 18 stories high. I 'll be able to see it from blocks away and plan my assault. This time everything seemed right, I was even hearing Leonard Cohn. As I scanned the high-rise riddled landscape I could hear the music getting louder and louder but I couldn't see the GHM. I was starting to panic, thinking that my alter reality had gotten the best of me again. It couldn't be another !@#%* delusion. It just could not be. This really wasn't the time for a flashback. 

And then right in front of me I see it and it isn't funny.

Chinese good humor at its best – a water truck.

Good thing I didn't make it out the door. 

© 2011 Karl Shaffer