Yes, I can remember my first day of kindergarten, and yes, I can remember my first school lunch — both were yucky.
On my first day of “Big” school, I had an accident and had to change my clothes. Now stop laughing. Thankfully, it wasn’t that kinda accident, but rather it was an accident with my school lunch.
I’ll explain.
Vegetable soup and peanut butter and honey sandwiches go together like … well… vegetable soup and peanut butter and honey sandwiches. I loved both so I was very happy to sit down with them in front of me on that first day. Unfortunately, before even the first spoonful, my happiness turned to sadness when someone “accidently” bumped into me causing the entire bowl of soup to spill down the front of my shirt and all over my lap.
Stomp heard around the lunchroom.
I never did get to enjoy that sandwich either. It too was “accidently” dropped on the floor and then stomped on. Little did I know that the someone who bumped into me causing everything to happen would, years later, be known as Down the Street Bully Brad.
That incident turned me off school lunches, and I brought food from home for the rest of my time in public school. After all, for me, school food was now yucky. Besides, our mom made better lunches anyway, and they never spilled.
Which is which?
Even between five of us kids, it was easy to determine which school lunch was ours. Mom used a black marker to print our names on small brown paper bags; our lunch was then placed inside. Guess it didn’t really matter which bag we picked up. The contents were all the same: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, apple or orange, chips, a coke, and sometimes a whole carrot from Dad’s garden.
As we got older, school got harder, but Mom’s lunches never changed. And no bully from down the street ever spilled vegetable soup on me at lunchtime again.
The lunchbox evolution
I’m starting my second-year teaching at our local elementary school, and I’ve yet to see one lunch from home toted in a plain paper bag with the child’s name printed on the outside. Nope. All the lunches brought from home come either in a hard-shelled plastic box with a latch or cloth box with a heavy-duty zipper.
Once opened, inside the lunch box are smaller plastic boxes, each keeping its specific food separated. Then, to keep everything cool, there’s a refreezeable plastic block.
We didn’t have such a thing back on Flamingo, and we never complained about a warm (sometimes slightly squished) peanut butter and jelly sandwich at lunchtime.
No Cokes!
In over a year, I’ve had to help open a lot of juice boxes (yes, yet another box inside the lunch box) but not one Coke. With all their innovations, it’s my belief that the modern-day lunch boxes fall woefully short without a Coke inside. And I’m afraid the simplicity (and deliciousness) of our mom’s school lunch has been lost on this generation. This brings us right back to the yuckiness of buying the food at school.
Or does it?
Last week, in a hurry to get out of the house, I’d forgotten my watch, hand sanitizer and yes, my lunch. With no other choice, I made the long walk to the lunchroom and reluctantly bought my first school lunch in over sixty years.
To say I was surprised would be a grave understatement. The best chicken and waffles I’ve ever eaten are served right here in our lunchroom. They also have hotdogs, hamburgers, Sloppy Joes, and a fantastic cheese pizza slice almost as big as my head. Sorry, Mom, school lunches are so good nowadays I’ll never bring my small brown paper bag lunch again.
Modern day school lunches? Not so yucky after all — in fact, they are healthy and oh so delicious! But I still have one suggestion.
They should serve chicken and waffles every day — if not for all the other kids, at least for the world’s oldest third grader … me.
[Rick Ryckeley has been writing stories weekly in The Citizen since 2001.]
