Fun Monday, Lunch Time

Fay asks us to write about lunch in school via a writing lesson from Anne Lamotts's book. Before I write about lunch, I would like to plug the book/author. It has been years since I have read Anne Lamont, but she writes very well. She is both funny and honest. I found that I learned a lot of about myself reading her books, even when I didn't take the time to really ponder her writing. I need to dig her books out, again.

I am a product of the public school system – actually many school systems, since my father moved the family frequently during my first nine years of life.

I do not remember in lunch in kindergarten, first or second grade. I am assuming that I ate. I remember the cafeteria in third grade – a large room with picnic style tables that folded down from the walls. School assemblies were held in the cafeteria when the tables were folded up.

When we moved half way through my third grade year the cafeteria at the new school was a large room with tables and chairs in long rows. The walls were covered in institutional green tile. The food preparation was at one end although that didn't matter as I always carried my own lunch. I was allowed to buy a school lunch about once a month. I do not remember why I would occasionally get to have that "other" food. The drill was eat then play. Third grade was a difficult year. I have always been painfully shy, and moving mid-year was especially difficult. The cultures between the two schools (one in New Jersey and one in Texas) were quite different. I didn't understand what it meant to be a cheerleader or why I should care about football teams. I don't remember crying at lunch, but I do remember my homeroom teacher calling me in one day, telling me that I should stop crying because "no one is going to like a sad little girl."

By junior high, the cafeteria became a thing of the past – I knew where it was located but ate elsewhere. The band geeks would frequently go to the band hall. The lunch time was spent eating and gossiping. When I became more engrossed in school, it also became a time to study. In high school the band hall became the home base. We congregated there before school to read/study/visit. We met there at lunch to eat and gossip, and after school for practice sessions.

My mother always packed my lunch. In elementary school, I carried a lunch box. Oddly, I remember my brother's lunch boxes better than my own, although I do remember that I got a new one each fall. There was always a thermos with milk, a sandwich, a baggie of veggies (carrots, green pepper (I LOVED green pepper) or celery), a fruit (hopefully an apple and not the dreaded orange) and two cookies. Peanut butter with jelly or honey was the stand by sandwich. Special days were pimento cheese or thin cut lunch meat. Yucky days were bologna or other cut meats. Over time, I asked for peanut better with honey. By lunch time, the moisture from the honey would have been drawn into the bread leaving a crystallized sweetness on top of the peanut butter that was good for the shy student's soul. I think the lunch menu was constant over the course of childhood. There were never bags of chips or those other processed foods that came into vogue.

By the time I was in junior high, the lunch box was gone. The thermos of milk was gone. Lunch was carried in a brown paper bag. Frequently, my mother would draw pictures below my name. I remember my father also carried his lunch – he returned his paper bags every day, while I usually threw mine out. Occasionally, Mom would run out of fresh bags, and I would be given one of Dad's pre-used bags. I don't know why I remember that pre-wrinkled paper so well.

I remember wishing that I could have the cafeteria food when I was in elementary school: school pizza or fish sticks looked so good. Oddly, by the time I was in junior high, that just didn't matter. I was content with my four part lunch plan.

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