School's out for summer, and the heat has Chattanooga-area children looking for a cool treat to help fight the muggy temperatures.
Enter the ubiquitous ice cream truck, purveyor of fantasy flavors and edible tie-ins to characters like Batman, Iron Man, SpongeBob SquarePants and even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
From the Choco Taco to the red, white and blue Bomb Pop, children's imaginations can work together with their taste buds to turn hot afternoons into inexpensive fun, according to Chris Long, vice president for the International Association of Ice Cream distributors and vendors.
"Ice cream trucks are like baseball and apple pie," Mr. Long said. "When people are at home, when they're doing the block parties, when they have the barbecue grill out, that's the ice cream truck's time."
The industry is virtually recession proof, he said, because people staying home for vacation tend to get more exposure to ice cream trucks, and the snacks' price doesn't cut too deeply into budgets.
Kiesha Harris, 10, concurred recently with Mr. Long's assessment as she gripped a recently-purchased Blue Bunny Sundae Crunch, known informally as the chocolate eclair by regulars.
"It's a dollar, so that's not much money, and ice cream costs a lot of money at the store," she said outside the Cambridge Apartments in North Chattanooga.
Mr. Long, who is also general manager of Kansas City, Mo.-based Frosty Treats, runs 18 trucks in the Chattanooga area.
Frosty Treats maintains the trucks in a garage on East 34th Street for the operators, who pick them up every day and make the rounds during ice cream season, which runs from February to November, he said.
"Peak season is about April 15 through the Fourth of July," Mr. Long said.
He believes there to be about 34 trucks total in the Chattanooga area, and about 15,000 nationwide.
"Many people see an ice cream truck, and they don't realize it's a very large industry that buys a tremendous amount of vehicles, parts, the whole gamut just like any other business," Mr. Long said. "We have a very thorough screening process, we check your driving record, criminal background, character, every person is checked against a national sex offender list, so we make sure each person is suitable to be an ice cream vendor."
The most successful drivers, according to novice operator Bessie Anderson, know how to keep an eye out for the kids.
A former fast food industry employee, Mrs. Anderson said she loves being her own boss, and loves children.
"I've got two kids of my own," Mrs. Anderson said, saying that being her own boss gave her increased flexibility in her work hours. "I love that if you live close enough you can go back home, wait for the heat to cool off, and then work until 9 p.m. if you want to."
Each driver under the Frosty Treats umbrella in Chattanooga has a territory so they don't cannibalize each other's sales, and each territory usually serves roughly 150 children through 50 to 60 stops, she added.
Permitting and health inspections are conducted out of the state Department of Agriculture, based in Nashville.