I browsed around the store for a moment or two trying to decide on a second option. It was the middle of the afternoon, so a snack seemed to suffice. But I was stumped as to what I wanted until I saw a small ice cream freezer display. What a great idea! A Popsicle!
The glass lid on the freezer beckoned me to survey its contents.
An orange cream Popsicle immediately grabbed my attention. My decision was made.
After making my purchase at the counter, I stepped outside and headed in the direction of my car. As I did, I peeled off the Popsicle wrapper and took a tentative bite into the cold ice cream. When I tasted the creamy orange flavor, I laughed out loud and said to myself, “Buried Treasure!”
That took me almost fifty years back in time.
I can’t recall the exact year when ice cream treats were made available for purchase after lunch at Carthage Elementary School. I have a vivid picture of the ice cream box as it sat in front of the railing on the left at the top of the stairs leading out of the cafeteria.
And I can recall most of the ice cream treats offered for sale. A Buried Treasure was an orange sherbet-vanilla ice cream treat on a plastic stick. A plastic disc, somewhere between the size of a quarter and a half-dollar, at the top of the stick served as a base for the ice cream. Perpendicular to the top of the disc and in line with the plastic stick sat a stamped figure of an animal or interesting object (the treasure.) You had to eat the ice cream to discover the “treasure”, hence the name Buried Treasure. Of course, there was the Nutty Buddy, Push up, and Ice Sandwich, to name a few others. Each cost a dime. For the more modest budget, a Fudgesicle or Eskimo Pie could be had for six cents.
Lunch back in those days cost 20 cents a day for a grand total of a dollar a week. Jim Dave Denton, a veteran of World War II, and a fine neighbor, use to tease us boys about the “hot lunch” we were getting at school.
Each Monday morning my mother passed out the lunch money for the week. When the ice cream option became available at school she had a tough decision to make. Up until that time my sister had not started to school, but there were four of us boys in school, each wanting ice cream. My mother decided Friday would be Ice Cream Day for the McCall boys. On Friday morning she passed out the dimes.
In later years, I would learn that she agonized over denying her boys ice cream every day.
One day she asked my brother Tom, “What do you do on the days your classmates are eating their ice cream and you don’t have any?”
“Ahh,” he said, “I just lay my head down on my desk and pretend I’m taking a nap.”
Over the years my mother has told that story many times. It never fails to bring her to tears.
Somewhere in my upbringing we were taught that if you don’t have the money to buy what you want, then you must learn to do without. Doing without is not so bad. As a matter of fact, it is an important lesson in living life well.
Paul, the apostle, wrote to the Philippians, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound…both to be full and to be hungry.”
To his young understudy, Timothy, he wrote, “…godliness with contentment is great gain.”
My father had a few simple saying he shared with us now and then. One was, “Happiness is not found in having what you want, but in wanting what you have.” It was his subtle way of cultivating a grateful heart.
I’m quite sure I enjoyed my ice cream on Friday more than many of my classmates did. Shoot, I had waited a week for it. And when I got my hands on it, I took my time. And I savored every bite.
I guess that’s why, after nearly five decades have passed, I can still recall the taste of a cold, Buried Treasure.
Post a Comment
