Thursday, March 30, 2017

Hoagie Day



The springtime scent of freshly cut onions wafting from the doors of the school.  This can only mean one thing!  Another Hoagie Day on the Penn View campus of Dock Mennonite Academy.


Let’s take care of something right off the bat.  Lest debate arises suggesting these sandwichy creations of decadence should hitherto be referred to as SUBS, let me remind you where you are.  Montgomery County, PA.  There are many of us walking around in this area with measurable percentages of Pennsylvania Dutch, Philadelphia Navy Yard, and Italian immigrant blood coursing through our veins.  These sandwiches are not heroes.  They are not grinders.  They are definitely not subs.  Just humor me and say it correctly…. HOAGIES.



I’ve participated in hoagie-making every year without fail since my son was in first grade.  He is going to be 30 years old this month.  If you promise not to look at me in a different way when you realize how many rings my tree has, feel free to do the math.

Dock Mennonite Academy Dad and dedicated Hoagie Day volunteer, Tom Putera






One might think after all these years of opening rolls and laying out freezing cold lunchmeats until my fingertips failed to retain feeling...I might actually be repelled by “Penn View hoagies” forever.

                                                  😵

Nope.  (Merriam Webster says "nope" is a real word but I guess that doesn’t necessarily mean I should use it).


After assembling and smelling hoagies in the hallways all morning, I can barely make it to 10:30 a.m. before taking at least several bites of the lovely torpedo which was supposed to be my lunch.  I blame my premature appetite on the crazy hour at which devoted Penn View campus people crawl out of the comfort of their beds to join the happy throng of hoagie assemblers.  


Good Morning, Ben!
There are perks beyond knowing you’ll get to enjoy the perfection of a school hoagie later in the day.  The early morning socializing with coworkers, parents, students (and friends who just keep coming back for more) is fabulous.  


The snacks for volunteers get more interesting every year, too.  In fact, I ate a piece of home-baked angel food cake this year in lieu of a donut.  Remarkable fuel for the rest of my day!






Over the years, I’ve learned to bring myself a hat.  There is a simple reason for this.  



Our dedicated group proves annually that NOBODY looks good in a hairnet.  Every volunteer wears a hat or hairnet.  Even volunteers without quantifiable hair!  

Former Elementary Principal, Dr. Penny Naugle and Grandma Dorothy Kratz
sporting their hairnets (circa 2011)

Bob Walters, secure enough in his masculinity to don the Hoagie Day hairnet.

Bob Rutt and Alissa Messina - 2013

Our students particularly "love" the hairnets.  (photo from our 2013 fundraiser)



Okay, MORGAN looks good in a hairnet.  She may be ONLY exception! 

Gone are the days of direct onion application “on the line.”  The onions are now efficiently prepared and placed inside individual packages for distribution rather than allowing them to permeate ALL of the gymnasium air with their mighty scent.  

I'm sure my daily dose of queasy students is grateful their attending nurse no longer smells like a bowl of onion dip.


This year I spent a solid hour fighting with the little gadget which is supposed to seal the hoagie bags.  It looks like a giant tape dispenser but as I soon discovered, it is an instrument of torture.  I tried various strategies.  Closing bags slowly and then closing bags with great speed.  Yet repeatedly, the adhesive portion of the closure tape became tangled in the plastic of the waiting hoagie bag, wreaking havoc on my patience and the perfect assembly-line rhythm I was trying to achieve


A similar catastrophe recurs when I throw myself too zealously into covering leftovers with Glad Cling Wrap...so I guess it could be me.... 


Student, Ben Longacre (the mathematical human force behind precisely packing 30 hoagies to a box) found a little too much amusement watching me struggle.











If you are one of the lucky hoagie recipients who received a few extra knots of green sticky adhesive on your bag closure, you can thank me later.  Just think of the hoagie calories you burned as you tried to free your dinner.
  

3,800 hoagies were made this year with over 3,000 additional Wawa and Landis Supermarket coupons sold.  Soups and snacks have been added to this sale along the way, providing a variety of options for those who incomprehensibly do not care for hoagies.

Current Hoagie Sale Parent Coordinators, Ben and Chris Shafer


Kaiya's smile is billboard-ready.


This annual fundraiser honors a long tradition of coming together as a school community.  Though the nurse in me wants you to know you should probably not eat hoagies every day of your life, the sentimental part of me wants to remind you there is nothing like a good school hoagie to make your taste buds sing and your heart feel pleased as punch for contributing to a perfectly wonderful cause.  

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Hot Cross Buns

Walking by a music classroom full of third grade students in Anytown, USA, honking sounds might cause one to imagine an excess of Canadian geese dropping out of formation to land squarely on one’s head. 

But no, these insistent sounds are not an assemblage of fair-weather fowl.  These, my friends, are the tootling strains of tradition!

The introduction of a simple instrument called a recorder during elementary music class has been a well-established national ritual since the 1960s.





In the mid-20th century, a German composer founded the introduction of recorders in German schools.  More than fifty years ago, recorders were already being mass produced for use in classrooms across the United States.


Using a nearly indestructible yet cheap plastic was the perfect way to introduce wind instruments to the masses.








My entourage (including Mrs. Gordon on camera and Mrs. Weikel on video) joined one of the third grade music classes to take a look.  



We immediately discovered several things.  

1) The students were very enthusiastic about their recorders.  
2) Most families have invested in a personal recorder for the children and the instruments come in various surprisingly lovely colors.  
3) And finally, elementary music teacher, Katie Litzenberger has the absolute patience of Job!



Retrieving their instruments and music folders from a specially organized wooden box, the students settled into three distinct rows.  

Yoga moves ensued, loosening up the shoulders and arms for optimal play.  


“Be my echo.”  Mrs. Litzenberger played a series of notes, and her eager musicians attempted to play back the same sounds.  Sounds sometimes resembling actual notes are achieved through the combination of air blown into the mouthpiece and the positioning of small fingers over recorder holes.  Sometimes the sound needed a little tweaking and with pained expression the teacher would remind her students, “that sound is getting squeaky…I think we’re putting too much air in there….”



If your childhood was anything like mine, I probably don’t have to tell you how nostalgic it was to hear that the music for Hot Cross Buns would be accompanying each student home that evening. But before that could happen, there was the song, Twist and Shout.  The Beatles would have been proud….. Several of the students had difficulty sitting still for their rendition of the classic tune. They began lifting and lowering their small bodies to accompany the note structure.  And over by the teacher’s desk, it was evident small Joshua had the moves (the twist...if not the shout)

Note identification and recognition was happening while the students also learned to sing and clap correct rhythms.  As with most things, some of our students displayed obvious natural musical talent.  Other students…let’s just say they have different kinds of flowers planted in their gardens.  (I learned that wonderful phrasing from one of our very appreciated school moms last year and it makes me smile every time it comes to mind).  

The video below will give you an idea about some of the happenings in class.  Thank you to the Weikel family for shooting and editing this video!


As the class honked a nice little tune, one student decided to dismantle his recorder instead. Our effective multitasker, Job (I mean Mrs. Litzenberger) calmly and kindly asked the student if he would like to play a solo for the class.  The industrious dismantler (probably a budding engineer) wordlessly declined, choosing instead to rejoin the segments of his recorder and play along.


There was a game of magic hearts.  Third grader, Evie (with insider information) whispered her knowledgeable opinion in my general direction.  “This is fun, you’re going to like it!” Indeed I did…the class standing on colorful dots and galloping with gusto around the room to the jaunty music Mrs. Litzenberger played.  




“Recorders out of your mouths for galloping!”, she reminded.  







The children needed to identify small sections of song and play them back.  They clearly loved the game.

Mary Had a Little Lamb is the song that most often comes to mind as one recalls that pathetic coaxing of a tune from one's own personal school recorder.  My own fondest memories include practice time after school on my family’s large front porch.  

Spring breezes swirled around me as I magically produced a forceful rendition of “Hot Cross Buns.”  Feeling accomplished while belting out those impressive three notes, I had no clue I was playing an English nursery rhyme about a Good Friday yeast roll.  I was probably attracting feral cats from all over the neighborhood too, but that is a story for another day.