kayaking on Loch Leven near Glencoe, Scotland, 2018

kayaking on Loch Leven near Glencoe, Scotland, 2018

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Kona Ice

I love this. Kona Ice is the "coolest" idea. Combination ice cream truck and snow cone stand (read my snow cone stand post here). 



Kids love the self serve/pick your own flavors feature. But they also have dozens of flavors to choose from inside the truck.



Kona Ice shows up at events and they motor through neighborhoods. They play a variety of island songs (key word variety, take note traditional ice cream trucks.)

What is really awesome is that when they go to fundraising events, such as the Walk to End Alzheimers this morning, they donate a percentage of their revenue to the cause. For the Alzheimers Walk, they donated 25%!

I have both loved and feared ice cream trucks my entire life. As a very small child living in Cleveland, Ohio, I heard the ice cream truck approaching on our street. I asked Mom to let me get something. It was my first time going to the truck, at least by myself. Mom gave me a dime and I rushed to the truck, where a crowd of kids had gathered. Ten cents may have been enough for a popsicle back then, but I must have requested a fudgesicle or something like that. I didn't have enough money. The man driving the truck was gruff and somewhat mean. I only recall being scared and humiliated. Funny how kids remember stuff like that. To this day, I can't see or hear an ice cream truck without thinking of that time.

In college (Wheeling Jesuit University), the gang I hung out with had a good friend named Brian, aka "Country" because he was from Bluefield, West Virginia. Country drove an ice cream truck, and would bring it on campus, much to our delight. Note the ice cream in one hand and a beer in the other. That's pretty much how it was.


Readers, do you have any ice cream truck stories? I know Kona Ice is a franchise. Where have you seen them, outside Lake Charles?

1 comment:

Common Household Mom said...

In high school my brother had a friend who got a job driving an ice cream truck. The friend overturned the ice cream truck on the Baltimore Beltway. Apparently ice cream trucks are easily tipped, especially when driven fast by a teenager. Whenever I go back to Baltimore and I'm with my brother and we pass that spot, we remember the demise of that truck (the friend was okay after the accident).