Blasts from the Past

     I used to think reunions weren't my thing. I thought they were only for people who were happy in high school and had nothing but great memories—in other words, class reunions were for football players, cheerleaders, class officers, and the "popular set." I was none of those things (bet you could have guessed I didn't play football). No, the only bright light for me was choir. Choir I knew how to do. Choir was my lifeboat in the dark, turbulent waters of high school. But even my good memories of choir weren't enough to entice me to wade through the crowd of "others" in search of a small handful of fellow choir geeks.

     So it shouldn't be surprising that I haven't attended any of my class reunions, and there have been several, both major and "mini." Granted, I sometimes had legitimate excuses; for instance, I couldn't go to the big 20th because I was in Italy at the time, but I did order the book for which I and my classmates wrote short summaries of our lives since graduation. I was rather proud of mine, as I thought it a sort of vindication for the negative social status and miserably low grades that marked my high school career. "Choir Geek Makes Good in Major World-Class Opera Company." It is a sad aspect of my character that puts so much importance on other people's opinion of me. I've never been able to do anything, anything at all, without wondering how it would look to other people. But at least I'm aware of this shortcoming, and it is indeed a shortcoming—it's called pride.

     One of the things that can conquer self-pride is love for others. Last weekend, there was a reunion, not of my class, but of my high school choir. I couldn't participate in the concert they literally threw together willy-nilly, but the temptation to see after so many decades some of my old choral comrades was just too great. So when they went to lunch between rehearsals for the concert, I joined them, literally for just an hour; but that hour was one of the happiest I've had since November 4, 2009 (you're probably wondering what happened on that date, but I'm not telling, and please get your mind out of the gutter!). This sounds so terribly cliché, but everyone looked exactly as I remembered them. That's because I was looking at them through, to quote Frasier, "love goggles." These people made high school tolerable for me, and I loved them for it.

     A couple of days later, I made a date for coffee with one of them. She and I didn't really get a chance for a good chin wag at that flying lunch, but we certainly made up for it over our laid-back coffee at Starbucks. She brought with her a copy of my book of juvenile poems and song lyrics which I had given her as a graduation present. My own copy of the book, and it was the only copy I had, went missing back in the '80s. Needless to say, I'm thrilled to have my old poems and lyrics again, horrible as they are. Believe me, they are horrible. But since I threw out all my adolescent journals during a fit of depression in college, these horrible things are the only written record of those turbulent years. So they are very, very precious to me, like a bratty kid whom you love anyway because he is your child. And my friend was everything I remembered her to be: one of the sweetest, kindest people I know.

     I came away from that weekend with the conviction that there should only be specified reunions of choirs, bands, football teams, pep squads, drill teams, clubs, etc. You can keep the big, general class reunions. But I'm only speaking as one for whom high school wasn't a generally great experience.

    

*R-r-i-i-i-i-ng!!* Time for lunch!

     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.

    

Paper and Scissors and Glue, Oh, My!

     School has started again (haven't you heard?) and I am put in mind of what I myself liked most about it as a child. Yes, I looked forward to seeing my friends again, and to meeting my new teacher. But what I liked most was getting new school supplies.

     I know I'm not the only person in the world that can spend an hour or more very happily in an office supply store. I examine every pen in the never-ending quest to find the perfect instrument for everyday casual scribbling and drafting poems (letters, journal writing, and more formal writing in general are usually done with my beloved fountain pens).  I haunt the paper aisle, pondering the merits of 100% cotton vs. those of a blend, and trying to decide between the classic elegance of white and the eye-soothing tranquillity of natural or ivory. Moving on to the notebooks and binders aisle, I fill my cart with folders and tablets, even though there is a plethora of both stashed in the shelves at home. I assure myself that they will all be used eventually. In the desk accessories and storage aisle, I gaze at the wide selection of containers that come in every conceivable size and shape, envisioning a home office that is more organized, compartmentalized, efficient ... then move on with perhaps only a pair of bookends added to my cart.

     I believe this fondness for office stores is rooted in the excitement of getting new supplies every year for school. Being one of several children made the excitement even greater, because our parents would always take us shopping all together, and we'd each bring home a paper sack full of treasure. Then every day for the next few days, I would relish taking each item out of my sack with childish glee, marvelling at its pristine state and wishing it could stay that pristine always.

 

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     I loved the over-sized pencils we used in under school (being born late in the year, I went to under school rather than kindergarten) and the crayons that had one flat side which prevented them rolling off the desks. I loved the special tablets we used whose lines were divided by dotted lines that served as guides for forming letters, first in print, then later in cursive. I loved learning how to write cursive, am eternally grateful we were taught it, and am deeply appalled that young people today not only are unable to write in cursive but unable even to read it, and therefore cannot decipher the diaries their grandparents wrote and left to them, or the letters their grandparents wrote to one another during the war.

     I loved the cigar boxes we were always obliged to have for keeping said pencils and other small objects together. There were the scissors with the rounded points, the jar of glue with its little brush affixed inside the lid, erasers and rubber bands. And there was my favorite item, the box of Crayola Crayons. I admit to being jealous of my classmates who had the big box of 120 crayons. For too many years I had only the box of 48 or 64, and when at last my mother consented to buy the long-coveted box of 120, my happiness was complete. I loved "cornflower blue," "midnight blue," "salmon pink," and "magenta," loved learning that "red orange" was just a reddish orange and "orange red" an orange-ish red.

     When I reached the fourth grade, I was thrilled that pens were on the supply list for the first time. We had a choice of cartridge pens or ball points, and although even at that young age I preferred the nib to the ball, my parents insisted on the ease and convenience of the latter. Along with the pens, we were also required to have ink erasers. I always had the half-and-half, one half pink for pencil, the other half white for ink. Of course, the ink erasers never worked very well, as ink in those days was much darker and thicker than it is now, and I would rub my paper almost right through trying to erase my mistakes.

     After a few days of school, both the pristine state of my school supplies and the heady blush of new ownership wore off. The inside of my cigar box soon bore lead scars from the pencils kept in it, my beloved Crayolas grew blunt and stunted, and I always lost the caps of my pens. But I would console myself with the knowledge that that school year would end and another begin, and with it would come once again the excitement of getting brand-new supplies.