Opinion: Palmetto community is less without popular ice cream man
For 25 years, Crescencio Rios Juarez pushed an ice cream cart with four jangly bells around the soccer fields of Palmetto, and to a grass-stained kid with a sticky face, the only man more wonderful slid down a chimney.
The children would react to the bells like a dog whistle and then tug on their mom's shirt … heaven help her if she didn't have a dollar. They'd run to el Abuelito – or Grandpa, as some called him – to see what he had inside his magical cart this time around.
He often wore a tan hat with old brown shoes and, truth be told, went home tired a lot. The money wasn't great, he was scared of being robbed, but seeing a kid foraging for a chocolate bar, their body so deep in the cart you could only see feet, well, that made those thousands of miles he walked worth it.
He was always at the soccer games at Blackstone Park on Saturdays. He went to other places too. Sometimes he'd head over to the games at Lincoln Park, Buffalo Creek, and even to the fields on State Road 70. Sometimes he'd go to Holy Cross Catholic Church in Palmetto and wait for mass to end. Sometimes he'd just walk the neighborhoods.
He'd push his cart five days a week, usually from noon to sundown. His ice cream came from a place up in Brandon, a certain type that stayed frozen longer. On a good day, he could bring in $100. Winter days fewer.
There aren't many people like him around anymore: a small-town staple and a throwback to a more innocent time. Soon, kids playing in parks will just have hot fudge sundaes delivered to them with DoorDash.
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He grew up in Mexico and was a migrant worker in New Jersey before he moved to Palmetto. He was married twice and said he had three kids living in Texas. Aside from that, no one knew much about him.
Sadly, he won't be at the games at Blackstone Park on Saturday. The kids won't gather around his cart, and the bells won't ring.
A cup will be there instead.
A cup for people who want to donate money for his body to be flown back to Mexico for burial.
The Ice Cream Man of Palmetto died on May 10.
He was 72.
He is survived by every kid who tugged on their mom's shirt, was handed a dollar bill, and couldn't run fast enough to the greatest man in the world who didn't slide down a chimney.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Palmetto won't be the same after loss of ice cream man
