on the other hand, children are learning all about the doppler effect

Forest Hills is insane. I was sitting in the yard with my mother a few hours ago and we heard a voice over a bullhorn coming from the street that runs on the other side of our yard. Our yard slopes down into a wooded area that gives way to houses and a small apartment complex. Not the best acoustics. All we could make out was some garbled nonsense and then the phrase "pick them up at the fire hall." After about a half hour, the voice made its way up to a place where it could cut through the brush a little better, and we finally received the vital message, "For anybody that ordered hoagies off the fire department, don't forget to pick them up at the fire hall."

Seriously? The phone has been around how long? And everyone in the world, including my grandmother, has email. You can even email someone from your cell phone. And still, Forest Hills seems to think that the best way to communicate with people is the town crier.

We also have an insane ice-cream truck in Forest Hills. We never had one in my neighborhood when I was growing up, (a whopping three miles from here) so the only experience I have with ice-cream trucks comes from television shows and manufactured nostalgia I've inherited from other people. But I would think that when anyone thinks of an ice-cream truck (unless this person lives in Forest Hills, of course) the basic thought that comes to mind is some kind of melodious music and a slow-moving freezer on wheels. Forest Hills apparently hired the Antichrist for its ice-cream-delivery needs. My other theory is that they are trying to combat obesity in a really cruel way.

The music this thing plays is so cacophonous that you wonder if the ice cream it contains will bite you if you somehow find a way to purchase it. I say "somehow find a way" because the truck barrels down the road at about 45 mph. In case you're wondering, the speed limit is 20.

They pick a new song every once in a while. The last two summers, it was "The Entertainer" performed by, I think, The Mental Patient Ringtone Symphony. And the truck moves so fast, you only get to hear about four notes at a time, so it took me both summers to piece together just what in hell it was I was listening to.

Today was the ice-cream truck's first appearance of 2007, and I think their music selection has devolved even further, something I didn't even know was possible. Remember the episode of "Friends" where Ross is playing a collection of sound effects on his keyboard? I think that's what just blew past my house.

I'll let you know next August.