Ice Cream Scoopers are ripe in the Land of the Sleeping Bear

By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor
The cool, wet weather of June and early July put scowls on many faces, but it was great for the restaurants in town. Bad beach days pack the lunch tables. Brendan Burroughs (Good Harbor Grill) and Tim Barr (Art’s) both report records for the week after July Fourth. When folks get tired of waiting for the sun and heat they go on out and just do what they came here to do. Mist and drizzle last week didn’t stop the diners and toe-tappers from packing the deck at Boonedocks, or from gathering on stumps at the Beach Bard’s Bonfire Friday night to spin yarns, recite poems, or sing a capella gospel tunes. The cold keeps the mosquitos away!

And everybody still eats ice cream regardless. Many a local has entered the world of work by making ice cream cones for a teen-aged summer in one of the area scooperies. Maggie Haskins, who made the final four on ESPN’s Dream Job reality contest last winter (trying to get a spot on Sportscenter and win a car) listed Ice Cream Scooper as her first job. (Maggie, graduate of Brown, still waits tables at the Good Harbor Grill, but don’t tell anyone. As a celebrity she fears stalkers.)
It’s the same ritual everywhere: The family’s eyes peer through the glass at the buckets of Butter Pecan, Moose Tracks, Mackinac Island Fudge, Bubblegum Swirl, Black Cherry Jubilee, Double Chocolate Triple Cream Marshmellow Bypass, or just plain Vanilla, and then their lips breathe all the names aloud as they try to decide. The scooper waits to recite the mantra: “Sugar cone or regular?” all day and all evening long. They endure sticky fingers, excavate tubs of asphalt-hard frozen ice cream or yoghurt, and grow the biceps of a one-armed house painter. But they keep smiling and having fun and they’re happy to have the job.
Here are some quotes straight from the scooper’s mouths in this season of malteds and hot fudge sundaes:
What is the best and worst thing about being an ice cream scooper?
Ashlee Schroeder from Okemos, who works at Little Bear at the Glen Lake Narrows:
“I like interacting with all the silly people who come in. Worst is the Coffee with Cream is sooo hard, it’s like scooping cement!”
Tami Pischke of Maple City works at the Pine Cone:
“We have big sizes, so when the little kids order a small and get a big, it’s cool. But when it’s really busy you get sticky arms.”
Pontiac Young from Empire also works at the Pine Cone:
“Same as what Tami says, but I like working here because I get to pick the music!” At the moment it is the punk rock anthem “Freedom” by Antiflag. “And our motto is: Life is Short, Eat more Ice Cream!”
There’s a whole squadron of scoopers at Cherry Republic. Amy Woodward says the best is sampling all the ice cream before you get sick of it later, and the worst is customers who ask for several samples and then order something different. Mike Stuart of Bloomfield Hills, who has been coming to Glen Arbor for all of his 15 years, says the best are the free samples, and the worst are all the pestering girls he must work with. “No,” he changes his mind, “they’re pretty cool.” Jamie Moyers loves “getting to see little kids who are so cute and happy,” She avoids “really picky people who want something other than cherry ice cream!” And Aral’s own affable and magnanimous Maggie Mountz, mucho master malted maker, declares “the best is that you don’t ever have to worry about eating ice cream again, because you get sick of it. And the worst is that your forearms get sticky and you have to go home and let your dog lick them clean. And your one arm gets bigger than the other and you can beat boys at arm wrestling.” So when you benefit from the skills of these young ice cream miners dipping into their sticky buckets, TIP BIG!!