I was eleven when our family returned from five years abroad to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Abby Blocksma, my grandma, welcomed all six of us into her modest home at 739 Prospect, where she had lived for decades, much of the time without our Grandpa Dewey, who’d been killed in a car accident and whom I’d never met. I started school at Madison Elementary across the street, but, testing at an eleventh grade reading level, was soon walking the half mile to South High School. There I joined 1,200 students in a rectangular 3-story brick school that filled an entire block. (My dad schooled in the same building, along with Gerald Ford, whom Dad blamed for his trick knee, a basketball injury somehow involving the future president.) I was shy, spoke with a British accent, and so small, hall monitors often asked if I was lost. Until seventh grade, I’d been home-schooled in our Lahore home with brother Dewey, my friend Marty Vroon (later Rienstra), and her brother Andy. Nevertheless, despite my new circumstances, bag lunches, and liverwurst sandwiches—bleh—I adjusted.



After three years of American food I did like, I finally attained a height of 5’6”, 2 inches taller than I am now. In 9th grade, my first boyfriend, Marty Batts (who became a minister), took me to see The Merchant of Venice at Calvin College, directed by his mother, Melania. It was my first date. I was developing. Boys began calling. My concerned parents transferred me to Grand Rapids Christian High, a Christian Reformed Church school located, ironically, a block from Grandma’s house, but miles from our new home. Getting to school now involved a downtown transfer from one city bus to another. After school, between buses, I’d visit the Grand Rapids Public Library and check out as many books as I could carry, or I’d stop at Uncle Jim DeBoer’s grocery store for a free pickle. At Herpolsheimer’s, I rode an escalator! Once, waiting for my bus in front of Wurzburg’s, I briefly fainted. My favorite haunt, however, was not downtown, however exciting it was to explore on my own, but the cafe on Franklin Street across from my new school that served real American hamburgers and an addicting root beer float.

How I Make a Root Beer Float

To make a proper root beer float, I dump the equivalent of two scoops of hard vanilla ice cream into a tall glass or mug that I have just removed from the freezer. I pour in very cold A&W root beer (I couldn’t find Hires), patiently letting the fizz die down several times. When the root beer finally reaches the rim, I stick in a straw. Mmmmmmm!


 Yesterday my root beer float project involved a trip under Reno’s 96-degree sun across a 6-lane highway to buy a mug, straws, A&W root beer, and vanilla Häagen-Dazs ice cream. It is walkable, but so hot that I drove. The root beer float was an exception to my simple diet, which limits my sugar intake to morning coffee creamer plus dark chocolate some time after lunch, so I was fussy about my ingredients. But you can’t really ruin a root beer float—in a pinch, any root beer or vanilla ice cream will do. However, if suffering a sudden craving, I just find me an A&W. They make it right.