Metro Monthly
UPDATE
Girl Scout launches GoFundMe campaign
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enior Girl Scout Elizabeth Siembida of Columbiana was recently named national delegate for the 2020-2022 term where she will represent girls from northeastern Ohio. Although she was set to attend G.I.R.L. 2020 national conference this fall in Orlando, the event was changed to a virtual conference due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Delegates meet once every three SIEMBIDA years to vote on issues affecting Girl Scouting on a national level. During the lead-up to conference, Siembida will be given opportunities to be surrounded by female leadership, participating in bonding activities, and hear speakers from around the world. The conference will focus on governance now that the inperson events cannot take place. Siembida was involved in the Cookie & Milk One Mile Run fundraiser which was set for Firestone Park in April. However, it was canceled due to the pandemic. While the race became virtual, participation was limited which affected fundraising. Siembida has created a GoFundMe account (title: “Travel with Girl Scouts Internationally”) to help raise funds. (For more information, visit https:// w w w. g o f u n d m e . c o m / f / t r a ve l - w i t h girl-scouts-internationally?utm_ source=customer&utm_medium=copy_ link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1). In addition to representing Girls Scouts Northeastern Ohio as a national delegate, Siembida is currently saving money and fundraising for a trip to Switzerland in summer 2021 with Girl Scouts to see the home of Girl Scouts International. Siembida has been in Girl Scouts since kindergarten and has earned multiple badges as well as Bronze and Silver Awards. This past fall, Siembida was recognized by Columbiana Rotary for her community service efforts through Scouting. Siembida said she is eager to start the process for the Gold Award, the highest in Girl Scouting. The first step is by attending a class taking place virtually later this summer.
On vacation and dreaming of doughnuts BY MARK C. PEYKO METRO MONTHLY EDITOR
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ood memories have the power to take you back through time and space. Vacation food memories – especially ones experienced as a child – can linger forever. Because our family traveled annually from northeastern Ohio to Wildwood, N.J., the journey required a stockpile of provisions – a large, carefully packed cooler, a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and a Kellogg’s Jumbo Assortment of cereals for morning. The trip was a multi-state journey that also included an afternoon stop in rural Maryland, so we needed proper fortification. When we were younger, our dad packed the family car in early evening and drove most of the night. As we approached the eastern edge of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, he pulled into a service plaza to get a few hours of rest before sunrise. A little after daybreak, the children were ready to get down to the business of breakfast – in the close quarters of the car! While our parents had coffee, we competed for our favorite cereals. Because the wax paper in those little fold-out boxes had little patience for milk, breakfast was quick and deliberate. After some freshening up and a quick head count, we were on our way. The visit to Maryland was really for our mom. It gave her the opportunity to see her two elderly bachelor uncles and deliver boxes and coffee cans filled with cookies. For the kids, the detour meant a temporary slowdown in the trip’s trajectory. By late afternoon, we were hot, restless and more than ready to get to the shore. Once we saw signs for New Jersey’s Garden State Parkway, the trip was back on track. At this point – with our travel rations ebbing – we started eating more like the locals. We stopped at roadway farm stands for Jersey tomatoes, peaches and Bing cherries. While childhood travel was always an adventure, there was a point – always on the way to the beach resort – where time slowed to a crawl. It was hot, the traffic didn’t move fast enough and the landscape seemed unchanged for miles. But then you noticed sand on the edge of the roadway and the air cooled and freshened. Almost there. By nightfall, as we approached our destination’s exit at Rio Grande Avenue, our excitement rose. We were exhausted, yet exhilarated. We rolled down the car windows to feel the night air. The glow of the
traditional, mediumbodied brick building, but when we first saw the bakery as children, it stood blindingly white in an ample parking lot. A few large picture windows let daylight into the retail area, but by mid-afternoon it wasn't direct. A screen door to the left of the bakery cases let an occasional breeze pass through. By the time we arrived, around 4 or 4:30 p.m., it was probably near day’s end. Still, some doughnuts remained in the cases. Not a lot – just enough for the six in my family, PHOTO COURTESY OF BILL PEYKO Mark C. Peyko on the beach in Wildwood Crest, N.J. in 1965 plus a few more. The doughnuts served as a small indulgence Our first full day at the resort was before settling in for dinner. And after a day at the beach, we were ravenous. Still, always the bridge between the as a child, I remember handling my powfamiliar and the new. Before the dered doughnut with care. Although all the bakery’s doughnuts were light and airy, the age of social media, that meant raspberry-filled were a little heavier. The exploring the island and seefirst bite typically yielded a little filling or ing firsthand what had changed none at all, but by the second, you were in from the previous summer. heaven. The doughnut’s filling was sweet, but not overpowering. More like a raspboardwalk could be seen in the distance. As berry jam. And the ratio of pastry to filling we pulled up to the cottage, the first leg of always seemed perfect. our trip was over. We needed rest, but were That memory is over 40 years old, but it almost too excited to sleep. always spurs recollections of other things. Our first full day at the resort was always How clean the bakery was, the flight of the bridge between the familiar and the new. steps that led to an upstairs apartment, and Before the age of social media, that meant ex- the shop’s relaxed, end-of-day mood. The ploring the island and seeing firsthand what couple who ran the bakery seemed old and had changed from the previous summer. It Old World. And although we were probawas also the bridge between our summertime bly some of the last people they saw before lives in Ohio and the excitement of being a closing, they never rushed us. Wildwood vacation family. As I get older, I wonder if I’m exaggeratLike most families on vacation, we had ing the importance of that doughnut. Was our favorite haunts and rituals. In the it really that good? Or is it just inextricably 1960s and ’70s, that meant visiting the tied to the memory of being in that bakery Marine Italian Bakery on New Jersey Ave- with my dad and siblings? Was it the innue after a day at the beach. Although cer- dividual elements or the total experience? tain vacation memories have faded a little Can they be separated? Of course not. around the edges, going to the bakery for Back at the cottage, with the daily doughnuts in late afternoon has not. paper spread out and damp from my The bakery was housed in one of those bathing suit, I read the comics and pawhite-washed modern buildings that her- tiently waited for dinner. I’m not sure if alded the post-war tourist boom in the my doughnut ever lasted the ride up Rio Wildwoods. Earlier photographs show a Grande, but it doesn’t really matter.
METRO MONTHLY ENJOY SUMMER – HOME EDITION 7
