My grandma is a young and relatively healthy 78 years old, with an excellent memory of the past, and especially of my childhood. She enjoys telling anyone who will listen about the summer afternoons I would spend at her house (practically every afternoon). She has an enormous inground pool, and I was a water baby. I was content to spend hours upon hours splashing around, doing cannonballs off the diving board and diving for disks at the bottom of the deep end.
The Snoopy Snow-Cone Machine, that icon of early 80s kiddie fare. We dined on Five Alive snowcones that night, Isabella's first encounter with the treat.
and serve to your toddler who thinks she has just won the food lottery.
Snowcone Brain Freeze
However, fun and games poolside came to an immediate and screeching halt the second the bell of the ice cream truck sounded. I could hear that bell when the truck itself was blocks away.
As grandma likes to tell it, I would yell "SKIPPY!" (the same of the ice cream truck at the time), jump out of the pool, and run dripping wet through her backyard, down the driveway, and throw myself at the truck, forcing it to stop until grandma carrying her change purse was able to catch up and pay for my treat.
My selection? Always, a snowcone.
They were rainbow-flavored and rock-hard. I wasn't really a fan of the snowcones you could buy at ballparks or amusement parks, because the ice was always too soft for my liking. No, I preferred the hover on the edge of teeth-chippage eating my frozen confection.
Following a sprint to the truck one day when I was about 12 (cough21cough), I discovered that Skippy no longer sold the snowcones. Soon after that, I started to spend my summer days with my friends, and later working, so I didn't have the opportunity to chase down the Skippy truck at grandma's too often.
But hearing the bell of the ice cream truck, now called Mr. Scoop's, as it travels around my own neighborhood always brings me back to my childhood.
Last week, I was taking a walk with Isabella and we happened to come across the truck stopped on the street. I checked out the pictures of the treats on the back of the truck, and to my utter delight, I discovered snowcones are back! I didn't have any cash on me, but I vowed to correct that error in judgement the next I set out for a walk. But my craving for a snowcone wouldn't go away.
And then I remembered what I had stored at the bottom of my coat closet.
For Christmas this past year, my sister, remembering one of the most prized toys of our childhood, had given me this:
The Snoopy Snow-Cone Machine, that icon of early 80s kiddie fare. We dined on Five Alive snowcones that night, Isabella's first encounter with the treat.And it was good. So very, very good.
For you Snoopy snowcone virgins, here's how it works:
You load the top of the machine with ice cubes. Then, you turn a crank in the back, and the ice is magically pulverized! Scoop the shaved ice into a cup...
and serve to your toddler who thinks she has just won the food lottery.
More? Please?
No? Fine. I'll lick up the dregs from the table.
Snowcone Brain Freeze
I had one of those! They were so fun. We have an upgraded, fancy-shmancy model now--Hawaiian Ice, I think. It's not near as much fun as the old Snoopy machine. I loved mine. I also had an Easy Bake oven, back when the treats were actually a decent size, and a cotton candy machine. I would love to find one of those for my kids.
If you start running into the ice cream man once in a while, think how much Isabella will start to like the stroller! ;o)
EEKS!!! I had one of those, too!!!
I've seen them at Target and have contemplated buying one on many occasion. What a treat!
I gorged on snowcones this vacation, and boy were they yummy!!
Thanks for the memories!
Hubby and I both had those (we got all sentimental over them in the aisle of a toystore one day). They are too cute.
LOVE the snoopy snow cone maker!
Such great pics! When I was pregnant, the only thing I craved was ice for the most part. But very early in my pregnancy I had to have a snow cone at a place in my hometown. It was the only actual food item that I craved. Weird, I know.
We totally used our Snoopy snowcone maker throughout our childhood, too.
Love that last photo--I feel your pain, Isabella, I really do.
Hope you're feeling okay--I'm catching up on all my blog reading this week. For the record, there's no way I'd wait to set up the twins' room, either, not with a toddler and 2 babies in the house.
Yikes.
I covet your Snoopy Ice Machine!
These photo essays of Isabella are always so great! I love her expressions!
As for snow cones . . . I just go to Ritas . . . not quite the same but hey . . . now I'll have to ask santa for a snoopy machine . . .
My brother had one as well. I'm a lifelong snow cone lover. I'll take them any way I can get them. I like every flavor, any ice form, any consistency. I've been craving a shaved ice lately, and this post did nothing but remind me that I NEED one, lol.
They look lovely, now of course im going to want one all day long .
"You put ice cubes in
and get a snowcone out!
Yum-yum fun
is what it's all about!"
Ah, memories.
ohhh now I wanna get Lore ice cream from the ice cream truck... we never had that snoopy ice coner making but I think I need to get one for lore lol...
I love those pictures! I just bought a snoopy sno cone machine as a birthday present for one of A's classmates.
Now I'm thinking that I need to go back and get one for myself!!!