The Summer of Free Ice Cream

My neighbor bought an old ice cream truck at an auction this spring, for no reason that he could explain. It plays "Turkey in the Straw" very loudly and only sort of in tune.

He decided to drive it around our neighborhood every Friday evening in July and give away ice cream for free. No catch. He just likes making people happy.

Kids chase it down the street. Parents come out in their slippers. A group of construction workers on their way home flagged him down one night and he gave them all rocket pops. A grandmother in a wheelchair at the end of the block gets a vanilla cone delivered right to her porch.

He says the ice cream costs him about sixty dollars a week. "Cheapest happiness in the world," he told me, handing my daughter a fudge bar. He's planning to do August, too.