I can still remember exactly the way “the ice cream man” looked on the beach in Brighton. I loved those beach days way back when. Of course most of you under 35 probably don’t have the same memories of going to the beach as I do.

Going to the beach, for me, meant walking 4 blocks to the B train, taking it to Coney Island (Karen Green, had I known you lived there I would have visited you), getting off, walking down the stairs, then across the platform, then back up the stairs and taking the D train to Brighton Beach. Once there we walked 2 blocks to the beach. Oh, and did I mention that we had to carry our beach chairs, drinks and lunch with us. Once there, we dragged our chairs and bags down toward the water and tried to claim a spot for ourselves. If that thought isn’t enough to evoke horror in you young folks, imagine, no bathrooms, lockers, showers, concession stands with kosher frozen yogurt, pizza, salads and perish the thought….no flavored iced coffee!. We did have fun though. I made some unbelievable “sand cakes”. Most memorable, for me, was the ice cream man. He looked impeccable, not sure how though, as it was always sunny and hot. He wore a white button down shirt, white pants and white shoes. He carried this huge suitcase looking cooler over his shoulder. When called over he would put it down, open it up and that mysterious cloud of smoke would billow out. To this day I associate dry ice and smoke machines on dance floors at bar and bat mitzvahs with the ice cream man. There weren’t many kosher choices in those days. There was the orange creamsicle, the chocolate covered ice cream pop and the ice cream sundae, which in reality was a large vanilla dixie cup with chocolate syrup. Come on, how many of you remember licking the chocolate syrup off the back of the lid?

I just took you back tot he 1960’s, but we’d have to go back thousands of years to trace the early days of ice cream.

Although this would not be the sort of ice cream we’d recognize today, the Chinese people were reported to have made some kind of iced products, possibly similar to what we know as sorbet, thousands of years before refrigeration was even dreamed of.