Thurs. June 11

In Boston, we love our traditions and we love our ice cream and when you put the two together you have the Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl which ends today Thursday June 11. This is year 27 for the event, held at City Hall Plaza. (FedEx is your corporate sponsor.) And every ice cream company worth its - not salt, really, sugar - is represented, including Ben & Jerry’s, Baskin-Robbins, Breyers, Brigham’s, Spasso Sorbet and Gelato, Edy’s Grand Ice Cream, Garelick Farms, Gifford’s, Häagen-Dazs and HP Hood will be served for three consecutive days to support cancer care and research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Rain or shine, the Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl is open from 12:00 p.m. – 8 p.m.  Admission is $8 for adults, $4 for children ages 3-9, and free for children who are younger. One caveat; Geez, we are a portly nation. And this is an all-you-can-eat-affair. We can envision a roly-poly assemblage of sugar-crazed kids and their indulgent 'rents just slurping and sucking and spilling and digesting ... and repeating it all again ... and feeling good about giving the cancer research. You think, maybe, diabetes research ought to be involved here too or would that kind of hypocrisy be too much to bear? Too rich, so to speak? No doubt, the Jimmy Fund organizers and ice cream peddlars would say - like they say at those pay-yer-money-upfront-and-drink-all-the-beer-you-can events - you should indulge moderately.

City Hall Plaza, 800-52-JIMMY www.scooperbowl.org