FOR THE LAST 47 years, Grantley Johnson has been selling sno-cones.
Sweet flavours like coconut, strawberry, lime and lemon, cream soda, ginger, grape, pear, orange and pineapple, all of which he makes, poured onto scooped ice in cups tempt the little ones and adults who crowd his cart.
Most of those years plying his trade were spent on his bicycle.
In the last seven, he swapped it for a motorcycle.
Johnson, 65, dressed in a white shirt jack and dark-coloured slacks, with his helmet on his head, the strap hanging loosely around his chin, was proud that his motorcycle was perhaps the only one of its type on the road now.
Strategically perched on the embankment outside St Giles Primary School just after 3 p.m. Wednesday, serving the long queue of young pupils eager for a sno-cone, Johnson recalled that his motorcycle, bearing the tiny licence plate MB3600, was one of seven brought in by Damario’s.
He said the company did not bring in the parts for the cycle. As a result, he explained that when his bike was down, he would get parts from the other cycles which were currently off the road.
Makes own syrup
The motorcycle, which has a black leather seat with an upright backing, carries in tow on any given day the big blue ice box and five containers with the syrup as well as water.
Johnson said he spent all of his 47 years selling at Parkinson School.
You can see him there from after 10 a.m. for about an hour.
Then he takes a break and heads to St Giles Primary School in the Ivy, St Michael, for 3 p.m. He stays there until 4 p.m. That’s his daily routine every week.
Johnson, who lives in Green Hill, St Michael, even works on Sundays, but mostly around the Britton’s Hill area, and sometimes at People’s Cathedral.
The slimly built man said he enjoys what he does.
“I meet a lot of people,” he said, still serving his young customers.
Johnson recalled that he started out some years ago working for a woman.
“I then started to do it on my own. Everywhere I go, people support me,” he added.
Johnson makes his own syrups for the sno-cones and admits that he used to also make his own ice.
Today, Johnson said he sells sometimes more than 100 sno-cones a day.
His top three sellers are coconut, strawberry and cream soda.
Even though he loves his job, the sno-cone man said he is planning to retire by the end of the year.
“If I get a chance to retire this year I will. I feel I should get some time for myself to enjoy my life,” he said, as he continued to scoop ice into a cup and pump syrup onto it for his young customer.
