I was eight years old the summer of my first crush, and it was a big one. He was an older man. Nineteen years old. He worked at the Pure gas station at the bottom of the Cramer Road on Highway 61.
My brother and I would jump on the black hose that led to a garage bell in the workshop. That would bring my sweetheart out front to pump gas for my mom. He would wash the windows and even check the oil, all for about 36 cents a gallon. He had the same name as my brother, and I thought he hung the moon. He was cute, tan and had a beautiful smile. When he looked at me, sometimes I thought my heart would pound right out of my chest. My brother caught on and teased me about him all the time. Though I was only older by 10 months, I thought my little brother was “such a child.” …What did he know? After all, this was the man I was going to marry. I just had to hurry up and grow up before he met someone else.
Schroeder was a booming town back in 1971. There was Silver’s Sawmill and Lumberyard, Cross River Café where my mom had worked while she was in high school (though it was called Smith’s Café back then), Lamb’s grocery store with a Laundromat in the basement, Northland Hardware Store, a post office, and no less than three gas stations. Shell Gas, Pure Gas and Skou’s Garage, which sold a brand of gas I cannot remember. Each gas station also had a mechanic’s garage where the smell of grease and oil lingered in the air.
Of course Lamb’s Campground and Cabins were also in Schroeder at that time, just as they are today.
Quite an active community for a little “two blink town” — blink twice and you’d miss it, as my dad liked to say. Over the years Schroeder has changed quite a bit.
Today the gas stations are gone and you have to go to the Holiday station in Tofte if you want fuel. It costs a bit more (about $2.79) and you have to pump it yourself. No cute teenager to wash your windows, either—rats! Sadly, fires took both the hardware store and the café. Groceries were cheaper if you made a run to Duluth and most people bought a washer and dryer to use at home, so there went the grocery store and the Laundromat. All that’s left from those days is the post office, and that moved to what was once the Pure gas station location.
Whatever happened to my crush? …I vividly remember the day my brother decided to blab! It was the exact same day I died of complete embarrassment. Mr. Cutie-Pants came up to the car, smiled at me through the open window, and said, “I heard you have a crush on me.”
My heart skipped a beat. I looked him straight in the eye and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” and I rolled up the window.
That certainly crushed the crush. I decided older men were not for me and moved on to boys in the second grade. My crush did marry the girl of his dreams and had a boatload of children. Ironically, I became their babysitter. The moral of the story? If you have a little brother with a big mouth, buy him lots of candy bars so he can’t tell anyone your secrets!
That’s why they call them
crushes. If they were
easy, they’d call them
something else.
—
Quote from the movie
Sixteen Candles
Almond Joy Chocolate Pie
Ingredients
Crust
bb20 miniature Almond Joy
candy bars or 10 large bars
bb3/4 cups graham
cracker crumbs
Filling
bb½ cup granulated sugar
bb1/. cup cornstarch
bb¼ cup Hershey’s cocoa
bb¼ teaspoon salt
bb1½ cups milk
bb1 teaspoon vanilla extract
bb16 miniature Almond Joy bars
or 8 regular, cut into ½ inch
pieces (Place candy in freezer
15 minutes for easy cutting.)
bbSweetened whipped cream
or whipped topping
Di rections
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly butter a 9-inch pie plate and set aside. Place crust ingredients in a food processor and process until mix is thoroughly blended. Press onto bottom and up sides of pie plate.
Bake 10 minutes. Remove and allow to cool completely.
For the filling: In a medium saucepan, stir together sugar, cornstarch, cocoa and salt. Blend in milk and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with wire whisk until it boils, stirring for 1 minute. (This will be very thick.)
Remove from heat and blend in vanilla and candy pieces and stir until melted. Pour into pie crust and press plastic wrap onto surface. Refrigerate until set. Top with whipped cream when ready to serve.
6 to 8 servings
Heath Bar Blizzard
Ingredients
bb1 Heath candy bar
bb¼ cup milk
bb2½ cups vanilla ice cream
bb1 teaspoon fudge topping
Di rections
Freeze the Heath bar, then break it into tiny pieces while still in the wrapper. Combine all ingredients in the blender and blend for 30 seconds on medium speed. Stop blender and stir mixture with a spoon, repeat until well mixed, then pour into 16-ounce glass.
Makes 1 serving.
Frozen Milky Way Mousse
Ingredients
bb15 “Fun size” Milky Way Bars
(or 36 minis or 5 regular size),
divided
bb2½ cups heavy cream,
divided
bb1 cup semisweet
chocolate chips
bb1 teaspoon vanilla extract
bbWhipped cream for topping,
optional
Di rections
Chop 10 candy bars, yielding about 1 cup. Combine with ½ cup of the cream and chocolate chips in a large heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water. Cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture is melted and combined. Set bowl aside to cool. In another bowl combine vanilla extract with remaining 2 cups of cream; beat until stiff peaks form. Fold cream into chocolate mixture. Pour half of mixture into a 1½ quart freezer-proof bowl. Coarsely chop two candy bars, yielding about 1/3 cup. Sprinkle over mousse. Top with remaining mousse. Freeze until firm, at least six hours or overnight. Thaw slightly at room temperature before serving, about 10 minutes. Chop remaining candy bars, yielding about 1/3 cup. Garnish with whipped cream and chopped candy.
Tastes Like Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on an alpaca farm in South Haven, MN with her husband,
Michael, and their children Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her heart remains on the North Shore where she grew up with her parents,
Art and LaVonne Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys writing about her childhood and mixes memories with delicious
helpings of home-style recipes.
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