Ice Cream Truck

Last week just as Vivian and Evan and Jo and I were getting ready to ride to Rosedale Park we heard the electronic jingle of an ice cream truck. A moment later the truck had come to a stop in front of our drive way and in another half a moment Ava and Eleanor had also materialized. You can see the expectant look on the faces in the first photo. It looks like they are standing in a line - but they aren't.

In a minute or two the kids were dripping ice cream and our wallets were a bit lighter. Though no one said it at first, the grown ups soon agreed that the ice cream truck people (it was a couple) looked very very creepy. Then we realized that they lived up the next street a few blocks away. Neighborhood rumor has it that this couple ride around late at night in blue adult tricycles and steal For Sale signs from front yards. They also may be the dreaded Sharpie Bandits - leaving their mark on cars with expired inspection stickers.

Amy and Theodore and Clara joined us at Rosedale School. The kids rode around the covered basketball court like a hoard of Hell's Angels. Then the action moved to the monkey bars. That's when a distraught lady stopped her car on the street and racially profiled me and asked if that was my bike or if it was her bike which had been stollen from her front porch a few minutes ago. I thought of telling her that I had stollen her bike and then used it to ride with my illegal children (immigrants not bastards) to the park so they could play before the border patrol caught up with us. Instead I sent her off with information about the adult trike ice cream truck pervs who supposedly pilfer things while defacing your expired inspection stickers. Such is the state of crime and paranoia in the hood.