Apparently the Dickee Dee is going to be resurrected and there will be someone out in the community this summer pedalling both a bike and ice cream. Do you remember the Dickie Dee? I sure do. My parents owned a little corner store and we could get all the ice cream we wanted – but it wasn’t the same as the magical jingle, jangle of the Dickie Dee! How about pic-a-pop? How about rootbeer floats? Do you remember, before milk in a bag, when the Palm Dairies milkman delivered milk in glass bottles? Beep and Vico. High Riser and banana seat bikes. Bike licenses – and there was a new colour every year. View Master, record album story books, Are you there God, it’s me – Margaret. Sweet Tarts Candy cigarettes, Fizz, Lik-a-maid or Fun Dip. I remember riding in the bed of the old half ton and weekend trips with my Dad to the Nuisance Ground – we didn’t call it the dump. Three in the tree, no seatbelts and I’m not talking about not wearing them, I’m talking about there weren’t any. Barbie cases, rainbow coloured toe socks, batons, rubber squeeze purses, tassels on the handle bars of your bike or straws or playing cards in the spokes. We loved skipping. I could Double Dutch like nobody’s business. And we would laboriously take all those tiny, coloured elastics, loop them together for the more complicated Chinese Skipping. Cats cradle, folder paper game or fortune teller. Playing marbles, tiddly winks, or jacks. I remember never wearing shoes and the street would be so hot it would soft under your feet. I remember playing until the street lights came on. Summer in Saskatchewan. There’s nothing like it.
That’s Coffee Talk, I’m Vanese Ferguson.