The ice cream truck has been out in Hampden this week. Nearly every evening the mechanized tune floats its way past my window. I can’t figure out the melody—is it “Take Me Out To The Ballgame”? Dave and Wendy thought it was "Maple Leaf Rag." Does anyone know or have a guess?
I remember that in Takayama, every day around dusk, I could hear the Yaki-imo man calling from his wooden cart. It was sort of a song, or an intonation, something about grilled sweet potatoes, steaming and delicious and fresh. That sound, mixed with incense on the air and the evening bells (I lived adjacent to a Shinto shrine) is one of my strongest memories of daily life in Japan.