The dog days of summer were panting their hot breaths on a steamy summer’s day a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Or, in Lewistown sometime in the 80’s. It was so hot the trees had sweat rings. The sun beat down continuously like a hard rock drummer. An Aerosmithy hammering out horse shoes on an anvil from hell.
Brittle blades of grass were shooting off sparks. The air was still and silent like squashed road kill and about as fragrant. Everything and everybody smelled over ripe.
Lewistown’s Recreation Park’s pool was as full as Today Show weatherman Al Roker’s stapled stomach after a small pack of airplane peanuts. Trailers, apartments and houses’ air conditioners and fans were flying at Mach 7, whatever that means, inside Lewistowners’ homes.
Then suddenly the TV sets became black screen paperweights, the lights turned off, the fans stopped, the air conditioners ceased conditioning the air and, except for some swearing, the homes went silent. Sirens started howling all over town like backyard dogs barking when a strange dog appears.
Soon homes were too hot to stay in, so everyone went out onto their sidewalks and started wandering around aimlessly, trying to create a wind by walking. They met neighbors they never knew they had, visited neighborhoods they’d only driven past and talked to each other. Yes, actually talked, instead of letting the TV talk to them.
This went on for awhile and as the day’s sun dipped into the darkness of night, a miracle happened. It wasn’t the parting of the Red Sea. It was more like the parting of a bald man’s red comb over, but a miracle nonetheless.
The Parkway Store on Shaw Ave. became a Good Humor truck. With the power out all afternoon the freezers couldn’t keep its contents from melting, so the owner Rocco Soccio decided to give his ice cream away first come, first served.
So chocolate, vanilla and the trifecta- Neapolitan were there for the taking. Ice cream sandwiches and bars, fudgesicles, creamsicles and all things ice creamy became free as the wind. If only there had been a wind.
The word flew like a bird. Kids and families from all over town rushed there for this dripping soft festival. It was like the Parkway had become the center of the universe.
From a spy satellite in outer space it must have looked like Lewistown was starting to sink in a circle around the store with its crowds. There was such a stampede that I worried about the earth tilting on its axis and crashing into the moon. Luckily, Rocco ran out of ice cream before that happened on this delicious hot summer night.
Kids were running around town with cool sticky ice creamy smiles. It was the great ice cream giveaway that turned a power outage, a black out, into a white melting miracle of ice creaminess.
The Parkway owner has since died. So goodbye Rocco, my old friend, and thanks for the ice cream.