Yet Another Man From My Misspent Youth...

So what did you and yours do to celebrate Ice Cream & Violins Day this year?

What's that? What am I blathering on about NOW, you ask? You mean you MISSED Ice Cream & Violins Day? ( Which, as most savvy bizarre holiday-observing bloggers realize, is every Dec. 13).

OK. I'll be honest with you. I had no idea this past Thursday was Ice Cream & Violins Day either, though that may explain my mysterious hankerin' for a dollop of Cookies & Cream while chillin' to a stack of Stravinsky platters on the ol' hi-fi. (translated, that means I felt like relaxing with a bowl of ice cream while listening to some old Stravinsky records on my stereo.)

Anyway, as I contemplate how one might actually go about celebrating Ice Cream and Violins Day (an odd pairing, in my opinion...are revelers expected to eat ice cream and play a violin at the same time?), I can't help but think about a very special man from back in the day -- a man who embodied the best there ever was about soft-serve ice cream.

That's right.

Mister Softee.

I can still hear the Mister Softee jingle blaring from his truck as he rounded the bend at the end of our block throughout the hazy, lazy, mid-to-late summer afternoonof my misspent youth...how, like kiddies lured away by the sweet music of the Pied Pieper, we'd drop whatever we were doing, beg our moms for a nickel (or was it a dime? Or was it 75 cents but my memory is dimming?), and run like bloody hell to the curb to buy a Mister Softee ice cream cone (vanilla with chocolate jimmies, AKA "sprinkles", was my fave). Our greatest fear was that Mister Softee would speed off in his trusty truck before we made it to the curb.

Did you know there's actually sheet music with all the words to the Mister Softee jingle? Oh, yeah, baby. To take a gander at the sheet music, find out more about the cone man with the ice cream coif and how he came to be, or if you're looking for a new summer career, click here.

I still remember the hot, summer day my best friend, Valli, and I were sitting behind some pine trees in her backyard when we heard Mister Softee comin' down our street...and we plotted how we would put tacks under the unsuspecting Mister Softee's tires, and then, when he was out of the truck changing the flats, we'd jump in and steal all the ice cream. But that would be a horrible story to tell at this time of year when we're all trying to stay off Santa's Naughty List.

Sadly, in recent years, some folks who found Mister Softee's jingle to be repetitively and screechingly annoying, were trying to get someone -- anyone -- to come up with a new Mister Softee jingle. I find that idea abhorrent at best. I mean, it ain't violin music, that's true...But if, like me, you can still hum the jingle, and hearing it immediately takes you back to a simpler, more innocent and carefree time of your life, well...There could never be another, or better, Mister Softee jingle. Never.

Yes, remembrance, like a candle, burns brightest at Christmastime.

So now, for your nostalgic viewing pleasure...a real live Mister Softee singing the Mister Softee jingle...

(Disclaimer! I have not viewed the other Mister Softee videos that accompany this one...watch the others at your own risk...)

Merry Christmas and Happy Memories to all...and to all, a goodnight.