Amateur Blogger

I remember when I was about eight years old I saw a magazine advertisement for a pedal car that I knew I just had to have. And it wasn’t just any pedal car, either. It was a Good Humor three wheeled pedal car, and there was nothing on the face of the earth that this eight year old wanted more than that red, white & blue ice cream wagon.

Like any child who wants something, I pestered my folks for weeks and months on end about the pedal car. Both of them made it clear to me that this toy was just too expensive for our family to purchase and that I should set my sights on something a bit less costly for my next birthday gift. I’m certain that I was persistent in my pleas, but at some point I remember accepting the fact that I was never going to get the ice cream truck pedal car for my birthday.

It’s not liked we lived in the poor house when I was a child. My father was a physician and my mom stayed at home to take care of my brother and I. This was pretty common in the late 1950s and early 1960s. All of the costs associated with raising a young family, making a house payment, and otherwise providing for our family didn’t leave much money left over from my dad’s paycheck each month. Clearly there was not enough money to buy me this rather expensive birthday gift.

My birthday finally arrived. I remember that we were celebrating my birthday on a Sunday so that my Aunt Dorothy & Uncle Mac, who lived a couple of hours away, could make the drive up to our house for my birthday party. My brother and I always looked forward to my aunt & uncle arriving as they were both fun to be around and we always had a good time when they visited. I heard our small dog Candy barking at the back gate and knew that it must be Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Mac arriving.

I raced out the side door and to our driveway gate to meet them. And what do you think I saw? Uncle Mac & Aunt Dorothy were standing on the driveway with a brand new Good Humor pedal car as their birthday gift to me! I can still remember how excited I was when I saw that pedal car.

I’m pretty sure I wore half the tread off the tires that very afternoon as I drove the Good Humor truck up and down the driveway. Years later, after thousands and thousands of trips up and down that same driveway, all the paint on the truck was worn off. You’d have never known that years early it was a brand new, shiny birthday gift that made the day for an eight year old growing up on the east side of Detroit.

To this day, 48 years later, I still don’t know if that Good Humor pedal car was actually bought for me by my aunt and uncle or if my mom and dad just arranged it that way to be a surprise. I never asked and they never said. Whatever the answer, that gift meant so much to me that it’s the first thing that came to mind when I decided to try and remember what one thing I really wanted when I was a kid.

Oh, one more thing. You probably guessed by now, but my favorite ice cream treat from the real Good Humor ice cream wagon was the tasty orange and vanilla Creamsicle!

Let’s Blog Off Information

This post is one in a series that I have written (and will continue to write) for Let’s Blog Off. Every two weeks participants from different points of view explore a selected topic from their personal perspective. It’s interesting to see how different people approach the same topic!

Note: I wrote this article long after the deadline for submission to Let’s Blog Off, so it probably won’t actually be featured or linked to from their website. However, there are links below to other contributors who made timely submissions. Take the time to see what other contributors really wanted when they were kids!