The ice cream van is back!

Ah, the familiar sounds from childhood. Tonight I heard the ice cream van for the first time this year coming down our street. I've seen ice cream trucks around over the past couple of months but tonight is the first time I've heard one in our neighborhood this year blasting the unmistakable melody of Little Brown Jug. We don't have many children living around here so whenever I've seen/heard the ice cream van its traveling past at a good clip with the music doing double or triple time which can be rather amusing. Though not so funny for the people who may have heard the music, craved a treat, and by the time they got outside with their cash saw the van gumbooting it down the street.

When I was growing up in Cloverdale the ice cream truck travelled a little more slowly down our street and there was plenty of business from kids and adults. Nearly every house had someone standing at the end of the driveway awaiting the van. We always came running back in the house screaming: "It's the ice cream man!" hoping our parents would dole out a couple of dimes. And sure enough it was always a man driving the van and serving up the frozen treats. I don't remember seeing a woman driving the van. And the treats were a lot cheaper back then. Popsicles, Fudgsicles, Creamsicles, and Revellos all were about ten cents each. Over the years the prices increased up to about twenty-five cents, maybe even fifty cents by the time I was an adult and resisting the temptation to run out to the curb when I heard the blasting music.

Have you seen the prices on the ice cream trucks today? I don't even know if $2 is the lowest price, but the prices all run from $2 something up to $5 or so. Yikes! But its the cost of doing business. Gas prices, wages, taxes, etc. Its too bad the ice cream van doesn't attract customers the way they did when I was a kid.

Is it too early for Christmas music?

When I was growing up just after Halloween the stores would all start putting up their Christmas displays. These days, the Halloween stuff seems to come out in August.

But what about the Christmas music? I do like it in December, but not earlier than that.

Who’s the first to come out with Christmas music? I won’t include Staples who start in the summertime every year with their back to school campaign and It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

The first Christmas tune I heard was on November 1, a commercial on TV for MADD featuring the music of Deck the Halls.

Today on Global TV Morning News a group came on to sing White Christmas. After the first chorus one of the singers called out “Its never too early for this song!” and they did another round. Some people might disagree with that statment. It is too early.

Many years ago a company I worked for had piped in music. Around the middle of November we heard the worst rendition ever of Little Drummer Boy. I guess they must have got a lot of complaints because we didn’t hear any more Christmas music until December.

I haven't done a lot of shopping this month but so far none of the stores or restaurants I’ve been in are playing Christmas music yet. Though Christmas music by the end of November isn’t so bad.

Several years ago we were down in Hollywood during the Thanksgiving long weekend, and down in the states that’s pretty much the kick off to the Christmas season. The main reason for our trip was to watch Hollywood’s Christmas Parade. It was the last weekend in November and Christmas music was being played everywhere. Around Hollywood are a few Christmas tree lots, with trees going for well over $200 apiece. Metal trees and trees flocked in just about every color imaginable. I believe there were also live Christmas trees brought down from Oregon, but those were really big bucks. And with Christmas over a month away, what is the longevity?

Although its still a little too early for Christmas music for my liking, I’m looking forward to hearing the carols in a couple of weeks time.

The Coffee Shop further up the Street

A few years ago we leased a farm in Pitt Meadows. As we put it whenever we gave directions to anyone: “last farm on the right on Harris Road right before the Fraser River”.

Further up Harris Road, in the business section of Pitt Meadows, we discovered a coffee shop called Bad Ass Coffee. Nice place that also served light lunches and suppers, sandwich type fare mostly. In addition to a wide range of coffee drinks, they also served ice cream and desserts. The fun thing about this place was Friday nights live entertainment, usually a singer or two and their guitars playing cover music. We also enjoyed Sunday afternoons songwriter café where local musicians could showcase their own music.

Bad Ass Coffee had a decidedly Hawaiian atmosphere, from the names of the drinks to the interior décor, an unusual theme for this part of Canada. But the owners filled us in that the Bad Ass Coffee Company was a Hawaiian chain of coffee shops with franchises in other locations across North America and they’d bought into the franchise.

The owners even hired us and two of our mini donkeys for the Pitt Meadows Days Parade to promote their coffee shop.

One day we showed up and the name had changed to Café O Lei. The owners said they’d had enough of dealing with the franchise and decided to let that part of the business go, thus a new name. The Lei part of their name allowed that they didn’t have to make any changes to the interior décor.

Friday night music changed a bit to acts that we didn’t care for too much, but they really packed in the coffee shop by inviting all their friends. Slowly we began to choose other establishments for our Friday date nights. We couldn’t really blame the owners, they have to do what’s best for their business and unfortunately the musicians we liked the best who sang hits from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s just didn’t pack the house. Sadly most of the time we stopped in there would only be one or two other patrons. The coffee shop was never what I’d call booming with business.

And then we moved back to Cloverdale, ending our frequent visits to Café O Lei. We stopped in about a year ago when we happened to be in the area only to discover that our friends had sold the restaurant. The new owners had changed the hours, closing a couple of hours earlier. The restaurant still wasn’t busy.

A month ago we were in Pitt Meadows and stopped at the sushi place next to Café O Lei for dinner. Kerry got in before me because I’d slowed down to look at a notice on the door of the coffee shop. It was a sheriff’s notice that the doors were locked due to arrears on something....And here I can’t remember the actual dollar amount, but it was over $10,000.00.

Sadly another small business fails.