My oldest friend, whom I have known since the third grade, recently posted this question to our friends on Facebook: "What was your favorite lunch in school?" It evoked a lot of memories for me.
In elementary school, I almost always brought my lunch from home. My first lunchbox that I remember was white tin with sky blue trim and, on the lid, some kind of whimsical picture of a girl on a bicycle. My problem was I never finished everything in my lunchbox, but instead of chucking out what I didn't eat, I just left it in the box, so it frequently attracted ants later in the afternoon as it sat on the classroom shelf with the other boxes. My teacher would make me throw out the food, wash the box, and put it outside on the ramp to dry. If the weather was mild, I'd have to sit out on the ramp with it. I never really understood what I did wrong to warrant such exile.
My favorite lunchbox was the one I had in third grade. It was bright, shiny red vinyl with pictures of go-go dancers on it. (I was a child of the '60s; go-go dancers were our version of hip-hop dancers.) When I carried it swinging into school, sporting my little white leather go-go boots with the sassy tassels, I felt truly cool. However, I still usually left the sandwich and fruit untouched and went straight to the chips and cookies. My poor mother.
Speaking of my mother, she worked in the cafeteria of the school I attended for third and part of fourth grade. She brought me to the school with her every morning at six, and I sat quietly in a chair in the kitchen next to the big chest freezer, and watched my mother make huge batches of cookies or big sheets of cake, mixing the batters in deep steel vats. She and a German farm woman named Hilda were in charge of desserts. I liked chocolate chip cookie day best, because Hilda always gave me chips in a 1-cup measure and I happily gorged myself on my perch by the freezer. At Christmas she gave me a stuffed dachshund which I named Fritzie von Hüth.
I had a nickel to buy my milk every day, and I always got chocolate. Of course.
I don't remember ever eating in junior high. I mean, I'm sure I did eat; I just have no recollection whatsoever of what I ate, with whom I ate, or if I had a good time eating. Maybe it's because I had outgrown the go-go lunchbox and graduated to the boring brown paper bag.
My freshman year in high school, I attended a Catholic girls school, and again, I have no clear recollection of lunch. However, I vaguely remember the cafeteria, which, like the rest of the school, had green subway tile on all the walls, halfway to the ceiling. I think I still brought my own food, because my parents just couldn't afford to give me lunch money every day.
My most vivid memories of school lunch are of public high school, to which I transferred in my sophomore year—because I had the same "lunch" every single day, practically. My other close friend (not the Facebook post-er) and I always eschewed the steam tables in the cafeteria and made a bee-line to the snack bar to buy French fries and a Mounds; then we'd get sodas from the machine, she a root beer and I a Coke. Fat, carbs, and sugar. That was my daily high school lunch menu. It's a miracle I developed any kind of refined palate. It's also a miracle I didn't have a heart attack in high school.
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