HE WENT TO THE WOODS, TO SELL ICE CREAM
By Leslie Talmadge, Globe Correspondent

Boston Globe, United States
/22/he_went_to_the_woods_to_sell_ice_cream/
July 22 2007

Where Thoreau soloed, a Soviet refugee practices self-reliance, too

CONCORD — Henry David Thoreau went to Walden Pond to write and live
a self-reliant, independent life. Aram Arakelian goes to Walden Pond
for a different reason: to sell ice cream.

Not that Arakelian doesn’t appreciate the tranquil beauty of the Walden
Woods. On this particular early July afternoon, the temperature hovers
in the 70s. Only a few visitors stop at Arakelian’s ice cream truck,
which he parks a half-mile from where the writer and philosopher
lived for two years more than 150 years ago.

"It’s beautiful, but it’s not ice cream beautiful," said Arakelian,
adding that the perfect ice cream weather is about 85 degrees. "You
have to get thirsty and hot."

His first customer of the day, Amy Kierce, 40, of Acton, is undeterred
by the less-than-sultry weather. Ordering a Vanilla Big Dipper Cone
and Cookies ‘n Cream Ice Cream Sandwich for her children, Madelyn,
7, and Aidan, 5, Kierce said, "It’s a tradition to come get the ice
cream after we go for a jaunt to Walden Pond. I do it so when the
kids get older they’ll say, ‘Remember when we used to go to Walden
Pond and get ice cream?’ "

Perhaps they might even remember buying the summertime treat from
Arakelian, a former Soviet citizen who displays his patriotism for
his adopted homeland with the Stars and Stripes affixed to his truck.

He grew up never having heard of Thoreau, the quintessential early
American free spirit.

Kierce said she found a copy of Thoreau’s "Walden; Or, Life in the
Woods" by the Walden shore last year with a note inviting anyone who
was interested to read it, which she did. "I loved it," she said. "It
reminds me of all that’s good in the world, and it just made sense."

Tim Fallon, 45, of Denver, who orders a Strawberry Shortcake Ice
Cream Bar, admits he hasn’t read much of Thoreau’s classic. "Just the
excerpts they made me read in sophomore English," he said. But now
that he has been to Walden Pond and can picture the setting, he said,
"I’ll have to read it."

Growing up in Azerbaijan, part of the former Soviet Union, Arakelian
says it wasn’t just Thoreau he was unfamiliar with before coming to
America. There weren’t any ice cream trucks in his hometown, either.

Only wooden pushcarts with noisy metal bearings and dry ice to keep
the ice cream cold. To this day, he says, the smell of dry ice reminds
him of ice cream.

During slow spells between customers, Arakelian, 40, describes how
he emigrated from Baku, near the Caspian Sea, and found his way to
Walden Pond. Facing persecution, he says, in what is now the capital
of Azerbaijan, he and his brothers and father fled to Armenia in 1989
with little more than the clothes they were wearing and about 50,000
rubles, or $2,000.

"We [left] with nothing," he said. "It was unbelievable."

After staying with relatives in Armenia for three years, the Arakelians
were granted refugee status by the United States. They flew to New
York, where they were met by an American contact who helped them
relocate to Lowell, where they have lived ever since.

In 2004, Arakelian bought three ice cream trucks for $25,000 apiece.

(In 1845, Thoreau built his house at Walden, which wasn’t considerably
larger than Arakelian’s truck, for $28 — the price of about 10
ice cream bars today.) With the help of his brothers, Arakelian
operates ice cream trucks at the state parks at Walden, Cochituate,
and Hopkinton, as well as a lunch cart in downtown Lowell.

But Walden is special.

"It’s very peaceful. The park is spotless," he said. "It’s a privilege
to work here. . . . It’s a nice, educated crowd, with manners."

And what would Thoreau say about the presence of an ice cream truck
at Walden?

Richard Smith, 47, a Concord historian, said he didn’t think it would
have bothered the writer. One of Thoreau’s earliest recollections of
Walden Pond was picnicking at the age of 4 or 5 with his family and
catching fish and making fish chowder, said Smith.

"Picnicking, swimming, communing with nature. That’s what it was in
his day," he said.

He said that not long after Thoreau died, in in 1862, an amusement
park was built at Walden Pond, called Lake Walden. Featuring seesaws,
swings, slides, a boathouse, a bathing house, and dance hall, the
park drew thousands of inner-city youngsters, who took the train from
Boston on weekends.

"It was pretty insane and pretty crowded," Smith said, adding that
the park is more pristine now than the last half of the 19th and
first half of the 20th centuries.

The amusement park burned down in the early 1900s. In the 1960s,
the state turned the area into a reservation, limiting the number
of visitors on a daily basis. Now, no more than 1,000 visitors are
permitted into Walden at any given time.

Asked what flavor ice cream the famous transcendentalist might have
liked, Smith said, "I think Henry would have been a vanilla ice
cream kind of guy. Nothing fancy. He didn’t like rich or fatty foods,
and he kept a simple diet."

Mike Frederick, 38, director of the Thoreau Society in Concord,
reasoned that since Thoreau often wrote about leading folks on
berrying parties, "perhaps if there were huckleberry ice cream,
that might suit his fancy."

But Mat Leupold, 82, of Wayland, thinks Thoreau would have gone
for chocolate.

"It appeals to the soul," he said.

Whatever the flavor Thoreau might have preferred, he undoubtedly would
have had a hard time imagining some of Arakelian’s best sellers:
popsicles fashioned after animated television characters such as
SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer.

And he might have had a hard time fathoming Arakelian.

Wearing a tangerine-colored polo shirt and Madras shorts, the father
of three looks as if he has been coming to Walden Pond since he was
a youngster. In fact, as a younger man he served in the Soviet Army
in Moscow. He long ago hoped to become an engineer, but that idea
faded when he and his family fled Azerbaijan.

"We never imagined we’d become refugees," he said.

But he doesn’t lament the past, choosing instead to embrace his new
life in New England. On his ice cream truck, which he describes as
"patriotic," Arakelian carries an American flag, which he flies on
holidays around the Fourth of July and Labor and Memorial days. The
vehicle’s music box plays three songs: "Battle Hymn of the Republic,"
"Stars and Stripes Forever," and "America the Beautiful."

Arakelian and his family were granted American citizenship in 1998,
and for that he says he is incredibly grateful.

Describing himself as a "proud American," he said that, while it may
sound like a cliche, "we’re living out a little American dream. We
got the opportunity for a new life."