In our lives, there are some relationships that just seem to have always been there. You don’t know when or how they started, you just know you can’t remember a time when they weren’t there and no matter how much time passes in between your visits, you always pick up right where you left off, as if no time had passed. I’ve been fortunate to have several of these relationships in my life and today I’d like to talk about one that is truly important to me. I’d like to talk about my friend ice cream sandwich.

I honestly cannot remember when I first met ice cream sandwich. But I do remember when I knew that ice cream sandwich and me were going to be great friends. It was in first grade, at Rippling Woods Elementary school, in Mrs. Stransky’s class. In those days, when you did not bring your lunch in, you had to buy your hot lunch and milk tickets in the morning. If I recall correctly, at that time it was $.06 for a carton of milk and $.50 for a hot lunch ticket. As I was soon to find out, there was a third option. For a pricey $.25, you could get a beautiful orange ticket that could be exchanged at lunch time for one ice cream sandwich!!! As getting one of these was not an everyday (or for that matter every week) experience, on those days when I did, I felt like Charlie in the Willie Wonka story when he found his golden ticket. Only mine was a beautiful orange ticket. When lunch came and we had all made our way through the line and received our hot lunches from the lunch ladies, the excitement grew in the crowd. The teachers who had lunch duty, armed with boxes of ice cream sandwiches, would begin to walk between the tables. Those of us who possessed those beautiful orange tickets would raise our arms, ticket in hand, and wave them wildly, eagerly anticipating a visit from our friend ice cream sandwich. Ahhh, such memories.

And so it went for the first 5 years of our friendship. Our time together was limited to when my parents would allow it. Sure, there were surprise visits from time to time when his parents would drive by in the “Ice Cream” truck, but for the most part we only hung out every now and then. But all that changed in middle school. In middle school, we no longer had to buy our tickets in the morning. It was a straight cash deal ($1) to get a lunch in the cafeteria. Orrrrr . . . . stay with me here . . . if you had a really good friend you wanted to hang out with more often, $1 would also get you four ice cream sandwiches!!! And that is exactly what I did, and this is where my friendship with ice cream sandwich really blossomed. We went from hanging out once every couple of weeks to hanging out multiple times a week, for 4 times as long each day. It was a great time to be alive. At least until another friend, who shall remain nameless, but was called Rob, spilled the beans to my mom about what I had been doing and she put a quick end to it. But the foundation of a beautiful friendship had been laid.

Our friendship continued to grow throughout my high school and college years. I must say it took a step forward my freshman year at JMU as JMU’s D-Hall had an ice cream freezer on which the only limit was your self-control. I don’t have to tell you how that worked out. But as college is a place where you are supposed to expand your horizons, I was very happy when ice cream sandwich introduced me to his friend Nutty Buddy. Despite my dislike of nuts, I found that by removing the top of Nutty Buddy, he was just as much fun as ice cream sandwich – we had many good times together. But all good things must come to an end and as I moved on from college, me and ice cream sandwich began to slowly drift apart ☹. However, when I first got married, ice cream sandwich moved back into town for a couple of years and it was like no time had passed. Mrs. Chump, though, was not fond of me spending so much time with my old friend. So oftentimes, we would only be able to hang out when she was out of town for a long weekend. But what weekends those were. As she was driving out of town to visit Mrs. Chump-in-Law, I was driving to the grocery store and buying not one, but TWO boxes of ice cream sandwiches!!! We would hang out all weekend, from morning ‘til night – by the second day box one was completely gone. I would then discreetly eat three more to make it appear as though I had only had one each day. Sometimes you gotta work at having fun! Eventually, though, this ruse too was discovered.

These days I don’t see ice cream sandwich as much as I’d like to. Expanding time commitments, responsibilities and waistlines seem to often get in the way. But I am thankful for the friendship and the many memories we have shared. Here is hoping there will be many more!

When we do get together, we obviously like to share a bottle of wine. And by share, I mean I drink most of it, as ice cream sandwich was never much of a wine guy – he preferred milk and cookies (you are what you eat after all). And the wine I like to choose these days is Ring Bolt Cabernet Sauvignon, from Australia. This is a fantastic wine I first found at Field & Main (it was their Mystery Red that I failed to guess correctly ☹). A savory, full-bodied Cab with notes of blackberry, red cherry and a hint of spice, that is also well-balanced with a long finish. And at a price point around $23, it is a wine you can have often while hanging out with some of your life-long friends. Cheers!

Wine Stat Sheet