46 Years on a ‘Nickel-’n’-Dime Route’

The ice-cream truck rolls around the corner, bells clanging as the driver yanks a tattered rope. A dog sits bolt upright on a stoop.

The boxer’s canine treat is here--a cup of vanilla from Joe Villardi’s Good Humor truck. The silver-haired man everyone calls Joe is working his route, stopping by homes, gas stations, factories where he knows his clients by their first name.

It’s a route he has followed for 46 years, a long trail of sticky, satisfied customers in this town about 30 miles north of New York City.

As his truck whizzes down a slope, a young woman yells: “Joe, wait!”

He backs up: “Yes, honey?”

At an auto repair place, he’s greeted: “Hey, Joe!”

He booms back: “Yes, Pete!”

When his truck rolls into the town’s industrial zone, Joe turns to a louder electric bell to pull workers from their tasks.

At a nearby gas station, he announces: “Ice cream!”

From under a car: “Yes!” And tools drop.

All over White Plains, customers cluster on sidewalks, waiting for Joe.

Villardi, dressed in a T-shirt and white cotton pants with suspenders, is lord of his rickety truck. He has served ice cream and pop to four generations, starting with a pushcart at Yankee Stadium in 1946. He is believed to be the longest-working Good Humor man in the country.

Black letters announce “G.H. Joe” on his white 1988 Grumman truck, converted from an old telephone service vehicle. Every morning, Joe hoses it down before picking up the day’s supplies. About 11 a.m., he begins the daily ritual that--unless it rains--continues late into the evening.

About a hundred stops a day, he sticks out his head to ask: “What are we going to have, honey?” Then he dips into the freezer.

In the old days, it was raspberry and orange fruit sticks. Now, it’s Mega Warheads, sour sherbet with tart candy inside, and chocolate-covered Soft Caramel Magnums and Power Rangers Lost Galaxies. He also offers soda, candy, sunflower seeds--and lessons in kindness.

“At first I didn’t say thank you,” says Jennifer Anasta, 9. “But then I heard him say it. So now I think it’s proper.”

A woman who lives with an oxygen tank posts a sign outside her house when she wants a treat, which Joe delivers to her door. For diabetics, he special-orders sugar-free ice cream.

He knows how many kids live in each house and exactly what they want. He also can tell some what ice cream their grandparents liked as kids.

“Cotton-candy flavored ice on a stick, six twizzlers and canned tea,” he recites, the regular order of a woman he greets with a “Hi, Mommy!”

On a nearby tree-lined street, three little girls wave from the window, then come running.

Another regular is hardly a kid. At the appointed hour, 91-year-old Etelvina Perdidao sits on her porch. She always gets strawberry shortcake ice cream, and she refuses to eat the supermarket kind, even if it’s Good Humor.

“It comes home all soggy. This is fresh,” says “Grandma,” as Joe calls her.

The fact is, it all comes from the same Good Humor company, started in 1920 in Youngstown, Ohio, at the Burt family ice cream parlor. They patented the first ice cream on a stick, the Good Humor Sucker.

Now based in Green Bay, Wis., Good Humor disenfranchised its 1,500 vending trucks in 1976, when drivers had to begin leasing or buying their own.

Joe operates one of three such private businesses on wheels in the White Plains area. He keeps his prices low--$1.75 tops for the Magnum--and if kids don’t have enough change he lets them pay another day.

(Just for the record, he posts a sign inside his truck: “Sorry No Credit!! Pay now--Eat later!”)

Joe works his route from April until mid-October. The rest of the time, he hangs out with friends, goes fishing and vacations in Florida.

He has his special pride.

He won’t reveal his age, saying only that he’s a Korean War veteran and citing the ever-young Jack Benny, “I’m 39 years old.” And he won’t divulge his income, saying only that he makes “an average living.”

“It’s a nickel-and-dime route,” he says, “and you earn every penny.”

And that’s the curse, all the pennies. He takes home as much as $40 worth each week. But it gives him an edge on the competition. One of the other Good Humor vendors refuses pennies.

Street by street, home by home, person by person, Joe has become a community institution.

Stopped at a red light, he waves to the driver in the next lane, explaining, “Here’s another one who had diapers on when I first served him.”

Another longtime client is June Heinzinger, a kid in the projects when she first bought ice cream from Joe 45 years ago. Now 53, she makes a living caring for children, walking them to Joe’s truck on a sunny afternoon for their Smiley and Snoopy bars.

“This is community,” she says. “He’s loyal to us, and we’re loyal to him.”