Frozen memories

There's one snapshot somewhere in the old photo albums at home that remains clear in my mind: that taken during my sister's kiddie birthday party. The scene was of children seated at little tables and chairs in a garden, with balloons tied to the back rests of the chairs. Seated on one of the chairs was my childhood friend Mark, seemingly deep in concentration as he dug a wooden spoon into his ice cream cup. It's all too familiar for most kids in the 1970s when Magnolia was the unchallenged choice of ice cream, whether it was a popsicle or a drumstick you had in mind. I certainly had my fill of all of the offerings that Magnolia had in its heyday that seeing this poster of "Howie" and those "frozen delights" simply fills me with a sense of nostalgia!

I instantly remember Aling Ising, the nice, bespectacled lady who stayed behind the ice cream cart under the big tree on the school grounds all throughout my years of elementary school. Come recess time, we kids swarmed around her, peering inside the cart as she removed the lid to reach in for a pinipig crunch, an icicle, or whatever some kid asked for, coins in hand to pay for the frozen delight to be had. Looking back, it must have been pretty noisy whenever this scene took place; can you imagine dozens of kids running up to her, gleeful about taking a break from class and shouting their preferred snack all at the same time? But I never saw Aling Ising looking annoyed or flustered; she was always quietly reaching into the cart and handing out frozen treats, accepting coins in a matter-of-fact expression, unperturbed by the jostling and the noise made by rowdy kids excited about having some ice cream.

Another thrill that I recall experiencing whenever my parents came home with boxes of popsicles was the dry ice these came with. That meant pretending either we were in some magical land or we were magicians calling out magic words with accompanying wavy hand gestures, and "smoke" billowing from under us. Recalling these times is making me remember the thrill of getting the dry ice and placing it in a basin of water, then excitedly waiting for the "smoke" to appear! Along with this always came warnings of "Mag-ingat ka, huwag mo hawakan ng matagal ang dry ice!" from someone, probably my parents or household help or my older siblings.

I wish I had kept even just one popsicle wrapper from those times -- for posterity's sake. The goodies one sees in freezers at the supermarket  these days look so.... sophisticated. And where in the world are the ice cream cups in corrugated plastic that come with little wooden spoons? Anyway, even sans old wrappers and ice cream cups, there's the old faded photo from my sister's birthday party to remind me just how delightful those days were -- all because of ice cream! That photo, and the vintage poster of Howie and the frozen delights which the mascot symbolized.