A hot afternoon 36 years ago.
Sometimes I close my eyes for a moment or two, and think about something that happened during a blistering hot afternoon in Viet Nam, about 36 years ago. Back then, I was a rifleman with Delta Company of the 26th Marines. Our company was stationed in Quang Nam province, on a hill named after its elevation from sea level. We affectionately called it Hill 190.

We were involved on a rare, day maneuver.
On that particular afternoon, the entire company was involved on a day maneuver of some sort, and most of us were down off Hill 190 scattered about in the surrounding bush and rice paddies. This was very rare for us because mostly, the war was fought at night, and it was usually only during the night when we would come down the hill to set up in ambush. Mostly, we slept during the day – but not this day.

The heat was unbearable.
I don't remember exactly what it was that we were supposed to be doing. All I really remember — and I have no trouble at all recalling this — is that the heat was suffocating. Oh, was it ever hot! It was so hot that none of us wanted to do anything that we didn't absolutely have to do. The heat made it an extreme effort to even move – particularly after getting little sleep during the previous night's ambush. While being in the shade was better than being in the direct sun, it wasn't much better. Even the shade didn't seem to offer much relief. That hot, steamy, burning, offensive heat seemed to radiate everywhere.

It had to be 1 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon when someone in authority gave an order for me and three or four of my fellow Marines to pick up and move. I think we might have been sent to find water to refill our canteens. Or, we might have been sent to patrol another area.

I do remember that it took us the better part of an hour or so to reach wherever it was we were ordered to go. And of course, the heat punished us every step of the way there.

The boy seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Then something quite unexpected happened. It was one of those things that continues to amaze me to this very day. A young Vietnamese boy, who couldn't have been more than 8 or 9 years old, seemingly walked out of nowhere and came towards us. He was carrying an old Coca-Cola wooden box (the kind that used to hold the small glass bottles). He held the box like the cigarette girls in the 1950's carried their merchandise. He carried the box in front of him, holding it in place with a rope he had around his neck. One side of the box rested against his stomach, while the other side was attached to the rope he had around his neck.

As he came closer to us, the boy smiled and said, "Hey Joe! You want?" To this day I still smile when I think about what he had to offer. The contents of the box were covered with what appeared to be several layers of burlap bag. When he pulled the burlap aside, he revealed something that was both incredible and very valuable, indeed.

He had vanilla popsicles!
The kid, somehow, someway, had a box full of vanilla popsicles. To our utter disbelief, they were still frozen. We Marines looked at each other wide-eyed, astonished, and completely delighted. We then focused back on the boy — really, we focused on his popsicles. We didn't care if it was an enemy trick. It didn't matter. Plain and simple, the child in each of us surfaced and wanted what that kid had to sell, and if it was a trick, then so be it. We plunged right into negotiating. That young boy's bargaining skills would have done any automobile dealership proud. The kid was no pushover. We traded cigarettes (always the currency of choice in the bush, particularly Salems), canned meat, canned bread, candy, etc. When the dealing was done, he had most every incidental we had of value, and we had all of his popsicles.

It wasn't but a few minutes from the time the boy showed up with the vanilla popsicles, that we finished our bartering and ate every blessed one of them. They were not only cold, they were also beyond delicious. And there was absolutely nothing wrong with them. I can remember sitting in the shade with my helmet off, leaning up against a tree after enjoying my two or three popsicles, and thinking about how, when I was a kid, I used to enjoy a snowball (sometimes called an ice cone) on a hot day back in Baltimore. During that hot afternoon, those summer days back in Baltimore seemed so far away — almost like another life, maybe even a dream. Amid all the chaos that was the Viet Nam War — kicking back and enjoying those few popsicles was as good, relaxing and happy as any moment can be.

The Vietnamese boy vanished as quickly as he appeared.
As quickly as the Vietnamese boy appeared with the popsicles, he vanished back into the bush. I never saw him again. A few weeks later, I was wounded and medevaced to a Navy Hospital in Japan. To this day, I have no idea where or how he came by them, or how he kept them cold. All I know is that he had them, traded them to me and my buddies, and that they were delicious.

Nobody believed what happened to us.
When our little group rejoined the rest of the company later that afternoon, we found them still laying around, dealing with the heat. We returned with smiles on our faces, and told them what happened to us. As you might guess, none of them believed that anybody, much less a young boy, would be out in that heat, in the bush and selling vanilla popsicles. Most of them thought we were "jerking their chains" because we had to go on an errand in that stifling heat, while they got to lay around. And of course they all knew, that while there were many things one might encounter in the bush in Viet Nam, absolutely the last thing anyone might expect to find, was an ice cream man. But that was fine; those of us who ate the kid's popsicles just smiled at each other. We knew the truth, and liked the fact that what happened was so incredible — that no one would believe us.

Sometimes, good things just happen.
The thought I like to take away from this little story is that every once in awhile, for no particular reason, something good just happens. And when these good things happen, no matter how small, it's worth taking note.

Think about it, all I've talked about are vanilla popsicles here. I'm still enjoying them 36 years later.