Midsummer Day’s Dream Ice Cream

16 Sep Midsummer Day’s Dream Ice Cream

A teenager’s dream job.

“Just a lot of fun!!”

“What’s the donkey’s name?”

“What does Donkey eat?”

“Why do you do this job?”

“What do you do when Donkey poops?”

Answers below ….

You may remember buying ice cream from an ice cream truck as a kid. As you think back, can you hear in your mind the familiar music when the truck was blocks away from your house? The neighborhood ice cream truck was fun, but I bet you never bought ice cream from a cart that was pulled by a donkey! That would have doubled the fun.

This story is about two Ashland teenagers and their summer dream job, in the year 1963 or 1964. The story is told by Richard Kreisman, who grew up in Ashland. Richard and his friend Gary Pennington inherited the donkey and cart from a buddy who had used it in Ashland the year before – then “graduated” to driving an ice cream truck route in Medford.

Richard remembers answering questions like these as they clip-clopped around town. 

            “What’s the donkey’s name? … Donkey.” 

            “What does Donkey eat? … Iced hay.”

            “Why do you do this job? … We get to eat the leftovers.” 

            “What do you do when Donkey poops? … Here’s a shovel, I’ll show you.”

Here’s how Richard set the scene: “The donkey and cart lived on a very small farm in south Ashland, where we put the two together for our regular route thru Ashland. This task included loading hay and water for Donkey, lunch for ourselves, assorted ice cream bars and dry ice, plus a utility pack of bucket, broom and shovel.”

Richard described how he and Gary shared the duties. “During our day we would alternate our tasks. One of us would be the driver and the other would be the pilot. When Donkey went poop, the driver would stop and the pilot would pile it into the bucket [which you can see in the photo].” 

As the donkey led them through the streets of Ashland, most of their customers were young children. Richard thought the parents had as much fun as the kids, pretending “that they were just tall children who carried wallets.” 

In 1963, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival season consisted of 47 performances at the outdoor Elizabethan Theatre, most likely from late July until early September. This means that actors would have begun rehearsing in early June. At the time, their primary rehearsal space was also the outdoor theater. The summer energy of Ashland was centered right here.

Richard remembers that their time selling frozen goodies probably started in late June and ended in late August. As entrepreneurs, and as teenagers, they were drawn to the energy of the Shakespeare Festival. Some of the energy came from the OSF acting company, which brought an eclectic, untamed spirit to this still mostly traditional town of about 10,000 people. More energy flowed in with tens of thousands of theater lovers, who came to Ashland even then from all over the country. Richard remembers the actors “wolfing down ice cream during early rehearsals when multiple performers would descend upon our traveling snack bar.”

I will close with Richard’s most vivid ice cream cart memory, as told with his dry sense of humor. “My favorite day, and the day still most vivid in my memory, is the day Gary and I showed up at the Kapteyn Dairy in Lithia Park to load our ice cream and dry ice for an exhausting day of bringing treats to famished children and starving actors.

Mr. Kapteyn sat us down to present us with his dire news!

We would not receive our day’s supplies that day. No, we had paid our bills, and hadn’t recently misbehaved. It was because their freezer was not functioning, and no ice cream was salable. 

But, with a sad face, he said the freezer was full of peppermint ice cream; and soon it would be poured down the drain.

Would we like some?

Well, we thought it through, and said ‘Sure, we could eat some! Do you have any BIG spoons?’ We didn’t go to work that day; but helped clean out the freezer.

We both tried to save room for our dinners.”