The ice cream trucks of South Minneapolis.
Though none can claim the staggering cultural legacy of Mr. Softee, there are independent ice cream trucks everywhere in the neighborhood between May and August.
Summertimes in Minneapolis are shorter and more compressed than anywhere else in the country. Everything happens faster and with a strange, thrilling intensity. Overnight, everyone is half-naked. Previously inert neighborhoods suddenly smell like roasting pigflesh. Norteño music is blasting out of cars and backyard stereo systems all afternoon. Exciting new girlfriends and boyfriends appear mysteriously on the arms of acquaintances whom you knew first-hand to have spent their entire winter locked in their apartments with five-at-a-time Netflix subscriptions. This mindless energy is reflected in the fact that the streets are choked with competing ice cream men, from afternoon until late in the evening, when the sky finally darkens at 9pm. By September, it’s all over.
My favorite one is Mr. Kidnappee, which is (was?) a very dubious-looking blue Econoliner with a handpainted sign and hastily-applied vinyl lettering on the side. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Mr. Kidnappee around this year yet.
The songs vary wildly from truck to truck. For awhile, “La Cucaracha” was the favorite, which I always found vaguely exploitive. I have no idea if the owners and operators were themselves Latino and “La Cucaracha” is standard ice cream truck fare in the Latino community, or if it was the work of crafty anglos thinking they’d found a surefire way to lock up the Latino demographic. I suspected the latter.
I am absolutely positive the theme song to one of these trucks is this song. It usually passes by in the early evening, and it makes me want a beer.
