Cranford man displays ‘good humor’ selling ice cream from a truck made of snow

Robert Schott parked a 1953 Chevrolet ice cream truck on his front lawn and started selling Good Humor bars for five dollars apiece. The truck is made of snow.

It has headlights, rims, a front seat, and a license plate that reads “OHSOGOOD.” It is 99% frozen water and 100% a rebuke to anyone who thinks one person cannot make a difference.

Schott, 67, a communication consultant at Charles Schwab and an inventor of children’s toys, built the thing because he could.

Five tons of snow, 30 hours of sculpting, and there it sits on Springfield Avenue, drawing lines around the corner.

He has raised more than $5,000 for the Children’s Specialized Hospital Foundation in Mountainside, selling frozen treats from a frozen truck to people who hand him 10s, 20s, 50s, and 100s because they understand what they are seeing.

The money goes to a hospital where Schott’s friend Charlie Newman received care.

The project also honors his father, Joseph Schott, who turns 104 this week and who spent his evenings in the 1960s and 1970s at that same hospital, playing checkers with children and letting them win.

“In the 1960s and 1970s, I volunteered there,” said Joseph Schott, a Newark native who has lived in Fanwood since 1954. “I loved it, and I’d like to think they enjoyed seeing me.”

The elder Schott volunteered one evening a week for years, entertaining children with science experiments and games. He never stopped. Now his son has found a way to continue the work, using nothing but snow and an idea.

“The delight the kids were getting — kids with really difficult challenges in their lives and the parents who put so much out to care for their children — that got to my heart,” Robert Schott said.

Neighbor Lisa Hunt helped organize the grand opening on Friday evening.

The line wrapped around the corner. Children from the hospital came. Parents came. People who just happened to be driving by came. They bought ice cream and donated money and stood in the cold to look at a truck that will not last the week because temperatures are rising above 40.

“When everybody showed up, and Robert was standing there, I thought this is what we did it for,” Hunt said.

The truck is a 1953 Chevy model, or at least it looks like one.

Schott built it from the blizzard that hit the region, packing snow into shape, carving out the details, adding reflectors and signage until it resembled something you would expect to hear jingling down the street in July. He even created a front seat where people can sit and eat their toasted almond bars.

Back when Good Humor trucks actually looked like this, the bars cost 13 cents. Schott charges five dollars because the point is not the ice cream. The point is the hospital. The point is the father who volunteered there half a century ago, the friend who received care there, and the children who showed up Friday night with challenges in their lives and smiles on their faces.

“This moment will be embedded in their mind,” Schott said. “They’ll never forget. This will never happen again like it’s happening.”

Schott is not new to building things. He founded Bopt Inc. more than 20 years ago and invented WOWindow Posters, translucent plastic posters that light up in windows when you turn on the room lights.

Home Depot sold them. Walmart sold them. He sold more than 4 million. Then he invented SprawlyWalls, a build-it-yourself play system for children that the Strong National Museum of Play included in its Play Lab. The chief curator told Schott he had created a new toy category.

None of that matters on Springfield Avenue. What matters is the truck and the line and the money raised and the father turning 104 who still believes in volunteerism.

“I am a great believer in volunteerism,” Joseph Schott said. “I’d go there one evening a week to entertain the kids. Playing checkers, which I always let them win, mostly.”

The son learned from the father. The father volunteered at the hospital. The son built a snow truck to raise money for the same hospital. The children came and ate ice cream and felt, for a moment, like children anywhere.

Schott bought hundreds of Good Humor bars to sell. He is running low. The truck is melting. The money keeps coming .

“A lot of people just gave us 10s or 20s, 50s or 100s,” he said. “Really, some very generous people” .