Summer Peanut Butter

Few things fill my memory with delight as does the memory of those peanut butter sandwiches we received at summer school

From age five to about age eight, I went to summer school.

This was not a regular summer school used to make up lost time or work.

My siblings went too. It took place at the school building of All Saints Church in Hammond.

I don’t think it was formally connected to my regular school, save for some of my regular teachers who happened to work there. It was more of a summer camp. We’d do some reading and writing, but we also played outside in the parking lot. And we’d go on great field trips. I first went to the Sears Tower on one of those trips. We also went to the John Hancock Building and Lincoln Park Zoo, among other places in Chicago.

We’d get bused there and brought home daily for a big chunk of the summer. The building no longer exists. It went the way of most things in Downtown Hammond. It fell out of use, sat empty for a few years, and then was bulldozed to the ground. All that sits there now is an empty lot. All Saints Church is still there, and the public library sits across the street. The store and parade scene in A Christmas Story portrays what Downtown Hammond once was. That buzz of life has been gone for decades now.

I miss those magical summers of play and field trips, but what I miss most from that school is their peanut butter sandwiches. They were usually part of our lunch, served up at least once a week. No jelly. No jam. Nothing, but bread and peanut butter. Maybe it had butter, and just a touch of extra sugar to caramelize the exterior.

They weren’t particularly fancy or out of the norm. I know for sure now that the bread never saw a toaster. The sandwiches were probably prepared in the style of a grilled cheese sandwich, only instead of cheese, it was, well, peanut butter. And maybe the cooks used butter. I don’t know. I didn’t know enough about cooking then to even attempt to make them at home. With time, I tried. My mind always traveled back to that basement lunch room where the gaggle of sweaty kids crowded into the line. If I smelled the peanut butter sandwiches, my heart would sing. I would take my tray to my table and eat those sandwiches piece by piece, enjoying every single bite.

I have never been able to find similar sandwiches anywhere. And I have never been able to replicate them. God knows I’ve tried.