Sno Cone Joe and Mr. Ding-A-Ling

One of the fun parts of doing the Coach Jeff Blog is keeping my eyes open for possible story ideas.

Today, I found one I just couldn’t pass up…and it’s timely, too. With summer break on the horizon, the annual return of the ‘ice cream man’ can’t be far behind. But apparently in Upstate New York, purveyors of the frozen confection have already been patrolling the streets. 

In Gloversville, in particular, ice cream sales have ’heated up’ into a sort of turf war. Local vendor, “Sno Cone Joe” faces harassment charges, according to local officials, for trying to chase a competitor - Mr. Ding-A-Ling out of town. Sno Cone Joe owner, Joe Malatino, 34, and his co-owner Amanda Scott, 21, were charged earlier this week with second-degree harassment and fourth degree stalking for their efforts to dissuade Albany-based Mr. Ding-A-Ling from coming into Gloversville (located about 35 miles northwest of Albany).

Sometimes, you just can’t make this stuff up.

Only, you can. The real-life-plot is just like a story I told you about in the Coach Jeff Blog back in December 2011. The ice cream wars storyline is the basis for the Scottish Christmas movie, “Comfort and Joy.”

Here is the brief plot summary I wrote back then:

This is a quirky story about a Glasgow deejay, Alan “Dicky” Bird, who is reeling from the unexpected break-up of a long term romantic relationship that occurs at the start of the holidays. He still manages to go on the air each day - engaging the local listeners who have come to depend on his morning show for information and entertainment - even though his heart is broken.

After completing his radio shift one day, Mr. Bird stops to buy some sweet treats from a vending van. While making his selection, he stumbles into the middle of a family feud between warring factions of the local ice cream establishment. “All the best families fight,” they tell him.

As the plot unfolds, Dicky works to broker a deal between the two sides and bring everyone back together for a happy ending…just in time for Christmas day.

The twist in the “Comfort and Joy” plot is that the feuding factions - Mr. McCool and Mr. Bunny - are actually from the same family. The daughter and nephew of “Mr. McCool” are the owners of “Mr. Bunny.”

You don’t sense there are any fractured family ties between Sno Cone Joe and Mr. Ding-A-Ling. And it doesn’t look like there is a nice holiday bow to tie up a tidy 90 minute, feel-good plot, either.

This one, it seems, is destined for the courts.

JG

Originally posted 5/2/2013