April 21, 2015

A strong community relies on sweet treats

Pie can be a comforting refuge.
When I was little, my older sisters would sometimes let me tag along when they went out with friends. The ultimate! We usually ended up at Jerry’s Restaurant on Pine Avenue, where the homemade cherry pie a la mode was a customer favorite.
Sitting closely shoulder-to-shoulder in a crescent-shaped booth, my sisters and their friends slowly picked at their pie while talking for hours. I consumed my piece within minutes. I wondered why the group wasn’t paying more attention to their pie as the surrounding vanilla ice cream turned into a milky puddle. What was so important to distract one from eating?
I came to realize these gatherings were seldom about the food and more about just being together. We are grounded in place and community. Jerry’s is long gone, but others replaced it.
My high school years gave me Boss’s Ice Cream across from Morrison’s Cafeteria. After Sunday-night church, my youth group convened at the one-room ice cream shop. Hours earlier, when I was supposed to be memorizing scripture, my mind would wonder, thinking about the hand-churned mint chocolate chip ice cream cone that awaited me. And I also wondered if the boy who sang tenor in our youth ensemble would sit next to me or instead choose a wrought iron table for two by the shop’s front window with that ridiculously talented soprano.
Whoever said food is a pithy substitute for love never had Boss’s mint ice cream with dark chocolate chunks the size of a nickel.
Speaking of Morrison’s, I can still smell the aroma of breaded fish and tartar sauce while sliding my tray along the cafeteria line with my parents and their friends. But the big payoff was warm, freshly baked custard pie next to the cash register. Again, with the pie.
Rituals and restaurants and friendships come and go, but their memories last. Writer Wendell Berry says a community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared.
So, we come together. And if it includes dessert, that’s totally fine with me.
We have a new place. It is a twinkling beacon with rainbow lights atop a building shaped like an ice cream cone. They call it Twistee Treat. Cars line up bumper-to-bumper from the highway to the drive-thru for the promise of a soft-serve reward. Other patrons stand in long lines in front of venue. No one cares. It’s a good excuse to mingle.
“Wanna meet at Twistee Treat?” has become a frequent invite. A friend was going through a rough time and threatened to stay inside her home for the next decade. I texted her an invite to the double T. She texted back. “Pick me up in five.”
I was at a reception standing next to the speaker before he was about to present. I wished him luck. He thanked me, then said, “Regardless how I do, I’m going to Twistee Treat with my family after.” I so get that.
The other night at Twistee Treat, I noticed a little girl tugging at her dad’s shirt. She had finished her ice cream and was ready to leave. Her dad was talking to some other adults, oblivious as their cones of ice cream dripped onto their hands. The girl was visibly frustrated why no one was ready to go.
One day, I believe, she will get it.
It’s seldom about the soft-serve or the cherry pie. It’s usually about us.
And a place where we come together and find a shared retreat among friends and strangers, if only for a little while.