Strawberry Crush Grandma
by Shelly Schluter Vitanza
reprinted from The Beaumont Enterprise
“Shelly. Grandma.”
“Hi Grandma! Are you and Papa okay?” I inquired, surprised to hear my grandmother’s voice in the
afternoon. Normally she called me before my first cup of coffee around 6:00 a.m.
She ignored my concern. “Your Daddy tells me that you know a grocer man in Houston.”
“Well, I haven’t talked to him in a while but….” I tried to answer.
“Listen girl, I need some Strawberry Crush. The Lutheran ice cream social is next week and Strawberry
Crush has been discontinued. I can’t find it anywhere.”
“Well there are other sodas. Have you…”
“No, I sent your grandpa out to the store for some Crush this morning and he came back with Big Red. It
won’t do; the ice cream doesn’t taste the same. I’ve called every grocery store in 50 miles. No one has it.” She
had interrupted me twice and her voice had an edge.
Grandmother had made her strawberry ice cream for her church social every August for as long as I could
remember. It was legendary and she claimed that people became Lutherans because of her ice cream.
I now understood the dilemma and could envision that morning’s events.
At the crack of dawn, Grandmother had sent my Grandfather, the best driver of the two, out to get
Strawberry Crush. He’d returned with Big Red and the bad news of the discontinuation of Crush.
Distraught, she’d come in early from her daily weeding and pruning, put on a clean housecoat and settled in
on her white vinyl couch with the phone book and telephone to call every grocer in the area.
I’m sure she had called a few girlfriends, too. I could hear it: “Girl, can you imagine? Now why on earth
would they stop making Strawberry Crush?”
After a morning’s worth of futile phone calling she had turned to her oldest son, my Dad, to implore him to
find the soda for her.
My Dad passed on the task telling Grandmother to call me because I had dated a grocer at one time.
All this had transpired before noon and here we were.
“Grandma, I dated him a few times and I really don’t want to call him,” I tried to explain the reason for my
reluctance.
“Well, so, you didn’t marry him but this is important. Please call him,” she begged.
“Oh, all right, I’ll call him,” I agreed, knowing I had no choice.
“Good. Got to run. My program is on. Call me back.” She hung up.
I glanced at the clock. It was 1:00 p.m. and time for “her program,” All My Children, a show she hadn’t
missed since its very first episode.
Reluctantly, I called my grocer friend. I don’t think he totally understood the importance of Strawberry Crush
and I didn’t try to explain its recruiting power for the Lutheran Church. However, he was able to locate it in
Amarillo. I connected him and Grandmother for purchasing and shipping, and a week later the Lutheran social
attendees enjoyed another year of strawberry ice cream.
Five cases of Strawberry Crush were found stored under beds in my Grandmother’s guest bedroom when
she died. Apparently she had bought all the Strawberry Crush the Amarillo grocery store had available in
preparation for years of ice cream socials.
I wish she had out lived her Crush supply because even when I use it to make the strawberry ice cream it just
doesn’t taste the same. I guess it wasn’t the Crush that made the recipe so delicious after all, it was Grandma.