Guinness gets scoop on Peabody ice cream man

PEABODY – Don?t talk to Allan Ganz about retirement: At the age of 78, he is up at 5 a.m. stocking his truck with ice cream from a Chelsea vendor before hitting the streets of West Peabody with “Yankee Doodle” wafting from his 1994 Chevrolet delivery truck.From April vacation week to Columbus Day, Ganz is rolling down suburban side streets, ringing his bell and waiting for children to race down their driveways with money in hand or parents in tow.West Peabody resident Michelle Dinis is more than willing to buy her daughter, Sophia, 4, an ice cream concoction called a “rocket” when Ganz passes through her neighborhood.?He?s down here every morning at 11:30 a.m. I make sure she listens for the bell,” Dinis said.Ganz is a second-generation ice cream man and customers like Sophia Dinis and Christopher and Gavin Stefanilo are third-generation customers. Michelle Stefanilo grew up in West Peabody, and Ganz was a neighborhood fixture during her childhood.?My brother knocked on his door one day because he missed him,” she said.Ganz? father, Louis, was known as the “jolly man” along the route he worked as an ice cream truck driver in Everett and Malden. Allan Ganz started selling ice cream at the age of 10, and working part-time or full-time, he has never stopped selling ice cream from a succession of custom-outfitted trucks.He counts more than 1,300 “friends of Allan the ice cream man” and looks forward to seeing his longevity as an rolling ice cream vendor listed in the 2016 Guinness Book of World Records. He displays a Guinness certificate in a frame on the side of his truck and said it took Guinness six months to accord him record-holder status.?I had to send them everything except my DNA,” he said.Guinness? website proclaimed last October that Ganz had broken “the record for longest career as an ice cream man.”During the warm weather months, he sells ice cream seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., even when the Chevrolet?s cab temperature hits 100 degrees. He displays drawings presented to him by grateful young fans inside the truck and insists he has never run out of ice cream.?I have over 66 different ice creams,” he said.?Minions” ice cream bars currently dominate the popularity roster among Ganz? selections, followed by SpongeBob bars. Ganz personally prefers chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches, and his customers have included a bride in full gown stopping for a cold bite on the way to her wedding.Olivia Silva has known Ganz since 1972 and bought ice cream for her nieces, nephews and children.?He?s awesome. He?s got a great personality and knows all of our names,” she said.Ganz has been married to his wife, Roz, for 55 years and the pair met – not surprisingly – at an ice cream parlor. When Ganz worked a postal service jobs for 28 years in Chelsea, Roz Ganz drove the ice cream truck while he worked.?I would come home, take a catnap, and be on the truck in the evening,” he said.Louis Ganz sold ice cream until he was 86 years old. His son does not anticipate matching that record, but he said it will be tough to stop spending summer days basking in kids? smiles and ringing the Chevy?s bell.?I like being my own boss, and I like the smiles,” he said.