Cruising around campus in his purple and green ice cream truck, vendor Paul James is always keen to spot a familiar face. Ever since he left the real estate business 15 years ago, James has included Wesleyan on his Middletown ice cream route, especially when it gets nice out. As a man of countercultural tendencies, James says that he feels a special tie to the school.

Stopping by recently, though, he’s felt like a bit of a stranger.

“I park on High Street for the Eclectic parties, I park at Butterfield, I park at Wyllys Ave, but it’s not like anybody knows me anymore,” James said. “It kind of bothers me that no one knows me.”

It was not always this way. From the mid ’90s to the early 2000s, James appears to have made himself quite well-known to the Wesleyan community, whether through partying with (and selling ice cream to) the student body, negotiating with administrators, or clashing with various Public Safety officials.

“He’s got a bit of a rebellious streak and that’s why he sells ice cream instead of real estate, like he used to,” says Noam Schatz ’00, a Northampton-based professional dog-walker (or “canine fecal expert,” as he puts it), and a close friend of James’.

James, or as he was once known, “The Ice Cream Man,” recalls these bygone times in glowing, nostalgic terms, keeping decade-old, tattered issues of the Argus in which he was profiled close at hand. There’s the photo essay, “A Day in the Life of the Ice Cream Man,” a picture spread of his wedding in 1997 (“The Ice Cream Wedding”), a front-page profile (“Ice Cream Man Cools Down Weekend Hot Spots”), and, of course, the screaming, top-of-the-fold headline from the April 24, 1998 issue: “Ice Cream Man Banned from Campus.”

Though James was never exactly banned from campus, the story manages to capture his complicated relationship with Wesleyan. When James pulled his truck into the WestCo courtyard for the 1998 Zonker Harris Day—which he had been asked not to attend by the WestCo head resident—he was approached by a public safety officer and asked to leave.

“At about noon Public Safety was alerted that the ice cream man was on Wesleyan property on Zonker Harris Day, and was asked to leave,” said then-Director of Public Safety Maryann Dexter in the article. “He can’t sell on Wesleyan property because he is a private vendor. He has come to football games and been asked to leave. He can sell on any city street—that’s policy.”

The policy, which still stands today, states that private vendors must pay $35 and also be invited beforehand in order to sell goods on campus grounds. James argues that he was unaware of this rule for the first few years he was selling ice cream at Wesleyan and he interprets its much stricter enforcement as an aggressive action against him.

At the time, certain students saw it that way as well, organizing minor protests and circulating a petition in support of James that garnered 800 signatures.

“I’m going to protest,” said Jeremy Master ’99 at the time. “I don’t believe in many things. I don’t believe in Earth Day, but I do believe in the ice cream man. The Earth can go to hell for all I care, but the ice cream man must stay.”

By the time of the Zonker Harris day incident, James’ relationship with students had grown quite intimate. In the spring of 1996, he threw a party for students at his house on Washington Street with liquor and live music. The next year, James threw another party that was broken up by the Middletown Police. Eventually, a new tradition emerged in what came to be known as the “Ice Cream Man Party.”

“They were just very happy occasions—5 or 6 kegs, three bands, everybody came, and back then, I knew everybody,” he said. “It was just very, very joyful. And everybody kept telling me that it was the best party of the year, and then I started having more than one. It occurred to me, why not have one in the fall and in the spring?”

In the late ’90s, once the Ice Cream Man Party had become a regular function, James began to be approached by students looking for illegal drugs. He had become aware that there were rumors and, as he still does to this day, he denied them to anyone who would listen.

“A couple of times they’d ask me for things that I had no idea what they were talking about—and other times they’d ask me if I had, like, nickel or dime bags, and I would always say, ‘No I don’t do that,’” he recalled. “There was never a time that I even hinted that I would sell drugs from the truck.”

James blames Public Safety for spreading rumors that he deals drugs out of his ice cream truck, a rumor that he believes has led to his perceived mistreatment by the department. The current Director of Public Safety Dave Meyer would not comment on the matter, though he is quite aware of James and his history.

Vice President for Student Affairs Mike Whaley, who handled the 1998 Zonker Harris day situation by drawing up an agreement with James, also has little to say regarding speculation about James dealing drugs.

“I have not heard rumors about him selling anything other than ice cream from his truck,” Whaley said.

James has his own guess for why the rumors might have started, however.

“I guess it’s because I look and act like an old hippie,” he said. “The truck is green and purple. I’ve heard of ice cream vendors selling drugs, but they always get caught. I can’t say why people think I sell drugs from the truck, because I have no idea. I can’t say why Public Safety thinks I sell drugs from the ice cream truck, because I have no idea. Maybe I just convey that image.”

One of James’ defining moments at Wesleyan, he recalls, was Spring Fling 1999. James Brown’s legendary saxophone man, Maceo Parker, was headlining and James was parked on the grass at the top of Foss Hill.

“It was a break between songs, and Maceo Parker was announcing his next song, and he said ‘Hey ice cream man, this one’s for you,’” he recalled. “And it was like one of those moments you just never forget. My heart was soaring, it was just fabulous, especially when the whole crowd turned and cheered for me. It was a classic moment.”

The following year, James tried to park on the top of the hill—to no avail. A Public Safety officer approached him and told him to go park on Wyllys Ave.

James threw the final Ice Cream Man Party in 2002. At that point, some of his closest friends—the members of the Mobius Band, a student group that graduated in 2000 and still plays today—were long gone. Since then, James has lost complete contact with the student body. In 2004, he says, he realized that he didn’t know any students on campus.

According to James, he again will be parked on Wyllys Avenue for the Spring Fling festivities on Wednesday, since Director of Student Activities Timothy Shiner said that he could not park on Foss Hill. Regardless, James, a man who loves his job, looks forward to the event.

“I want to celebrate 15 years of doing the ice cream business,” he said. “It’s just completely, at the risk of sounding too hippie-dippy, its all sweetness and light. Everybody’s happy when the ice cream man shows up, and it’s a source of joy.”

Still, now that the only remaining legacy of his days as the Ice Cream Man are his adversarial relations with Public Safety, bitterness lingers on.

“It kind of bothers me that no one knows me,” James said. “I’d have another ice cream man party if I could find a place to do it, but I don’t imagine Public Safety would smile too happily on that.”