Mr. Ding-A-Ling’s Last Call

Remember last Thursday? Mostly beautiful, mostly blue and bright? It was as if autumn, unable to let go, was picking through the leftovers of summer and squeezing tightly into a pair of Bermuda shorts. Michael Steinberg, too, was picking through the leftovers of summer, only he was pulling out an iced pop.

His selections were slim. Reaching a hand into a 20-below freezer, he could get you a Choco Taco. Maybe a few ice cream sandwiches. But no more SpongeBob SquarePants, the fruit punch- and cotton candy-flavored ice with gumball eyes.

Steinberg, who drives the Mr. Ding-a-Ling ice cream truck out of his hometown of Great Barrington — on a looped route through Lee, Stockbridge and Housatonic — was making his last rounds of the season on Thursday.

He’s done now. His truck, which swept through another luxurious Berkshire summer like a big, white hoop skirt on wheels, now sits behind his place off West Sheffield Road. With the leaves changing color all around it, the truck suddenly looks as out of place as a beach ball on a ski lift.

If, as the poets say, fall drums a requiem, then the Mr. Ding-a-Ling truck on Thursday served as eulogist for an expired season. There was hardly a dry eye in the house in Housatonic as Steinberg steered his truck into the village at the usual time — 5:15-ish —to the tinkling, teetering-on-madness chimes of “Oh Give Me A Home.”

Indeed, when you’re the ice cream man, seldom is heard a discouraging word.

Althea Kent, on Meadow Road, came running, her miniature black purse on a string jingling with coins. “She’s a regular,” says Steinberg, 24, who’s been Mr. Ding-a-Ling for the past four seasons.

Althea scans the menu posted on the side of the truck. Nearly everything — the dozens of assorted selections of summertime on sticks — has been painstakingly exed out with strips of gray duct tape that are started to curve in on themselves like dead leaves. She goes for the Chaco Taco.

“Oh, and I need to get something for my sister,” she says. She inquires about the Scribbler. Sold out. Shots? Ah, if only. Sprinkler? She’s in luck. Steinberg flaps open the freezer door and starts digging. “The last one of the year,” he announces, presenting it to her like a clutch of wild flowers.

“Woo-hoo!” Althea says, then pours her coins onto the pavement and counts out the correct change.

“It’s the last time you’re going to see me,” Steinberg tells her. “I’ll see you next year, OK?” She seems confused. She’s young, maybe 7. He explains he’s done for the season — that it’s time she begin to maybe start thinking about appropriate alternatives, like hot cocoa.

She says goodbye, then digs into her purse again and drops her few remaining pennies into the tip jar.

Being called “Mr. Ding-a-Ling” all the time, is not Steinberg’s favorite thing. “But I do love this job,” he says, muscling the truck into gear and pulling out onto Main Street. “The kids are great. I know their names. They know mine. I make their day. They make mine. I’m almost like a superhero in their world. They want to be an ice cream truck driver when they grow up. I say, ‘Aim higher, kid. Aim higher.’”

Steinberg graduated from UMass last spring with a management degree. He figures he’ll give himself till he’s 26 before he gets a “normal” job with a coat and tie. He’ll fly south for the winter, down to Florida, next week, where he’ll bartend on a casino boat.

“Let’s see, there are usually two little girls up here, regulars,” he says, pulling onto Kirk Street. “Amanda and Madison. They get an Italian ice and a fudge bar.”

Steinberg tiptoes the truck passed their house. Amanda and Madison are no shows.

Instead, a few doors down, a big, burly guy who looks like he could bench press a Cadillac steps up and orders a Bubblegum Swirl, which looks comically tiny in his hand.

Steinberg then steers the truck up Cottage Street to one of his favorite customers: Jack Coleman, who’s maybe 4, and who typically pays in pennies. Jack comes running, his dog Marlin serving as pace car, and orders one of the few remaining frozen strawberry shortcakes.

“Bye, Jack,” says Steinberg, adding under his breath, “He’s going to count the days until I come next year.”

Jack walks slowly back up his drive, the unopened shortcake in hand. He seems quite annoyed by the whole notion of Mr. Ding-a-Ling being done for the season, like maybe he’ll go on a hunger strike in protest.

Steinberg gives him a final wave as the iron door of the north comes clanging to a close. The sun is making its mad tick or tock toward the tropics, leaving behind a frozen world without the assorted flavors.

“I hate winter,” says Steinberg.