SWEET SPOT

Lunchtime was a much different experience when I started working at Penn View fifteen years ago.   Our school community was housed in a relatively dated building with no cafeteria at all.  Tucked in the small corner of a rather obscure hallway sat a beloved freezer which contained several ice cream confections for purchase.  Eager students would bring their quarters in trade for an ice cream sandwich or Popsicle to cap off the packed lunch they had just consumed in the classroom.  It is the stuff of legend!  My son and his peers enjoyed hours of wonderful lunchtime hangman on dusty chalkboards with volunteer lunch parents. Yet they claim deprivation upon seeing the beautiful cafeteria and delicious food now served at their alma mater.  I’ve heard Penn View graduates in their late twenties and early thirties telling the stories of having to “eat lunch at a desk!”  just as those of us in preceding generations recall with drama the torture that was walking to school…in the snow drifts… for miles and miles…..

One of the classrooms in Penn View's former building.  We LOVED those chalkboards!

Noontime frozen treats were a big deal when I was in school and remain just as popular with the Penn View crowd.  My own memories involve a small portion of vanilla ice cream in a soft folded paper dispenser that could be squeezed with great satisfaction into one’s mouth.  This delicacy was called a “squeezie.”  At the risk of dating myself, I recall this treat costing me a WHOLE NICKEL.  A friend reminded me recently that our pal Susie Johnson would purchase one of these confections every single day.  She’d methodically bore holes with her milk straw and douse the entire product with chocolate milk in an effort to transform the flavor from boring old vanilla.

Flash forward forty-odd years.  Penn View cashier Lisa Nice reports that just like my childhood friend Susie, there are several students whose lunch is not complete without a visit to the ice cream freezer. 

Sweet second grader Evie LOVES her ice cream.  She is, after all, a Rosenberger’s Dairy descendant. 

Delicious ice cream is probably part of her genetic makeup!  Besides that, it’s portable and IT’S PINK.

It is entirely possible that the two biggest ice cream sandwich fans in the building are eighth grader Sam Vervoort and last year’s Interim Executive Director, Dr. Don Steiner! 

 

Dr. Steiner (pictured above) might try deny his ice cream sandwich attachment, but we have lots of witnesses who are willing to testify…. 

Kaleb thinks cones are definitely the way to go!

Dr. Lore, caught with a cone.

Food Services Director John Anderson does an outstanding job finding healthy options and alternatives for our cafeteria.  He says, “Fortunately, there are some better choices available today.  Delicious possibilities without all the extra calories and saturated fat we ate when we were children.”

Wikipedia describes “sweet spot” as the place where a combination of factors results in a maximum response for a given amount of effort.  But I contend, a “sweet spot” can also occur in the middle of an ordinary school day with a detour for frosty contentment courtesy of Penn View cafeteria's well-appreciated ice cream freezer!