WHAT'S FOR LUNCH

All through elementary, junior high and high school, I took my lunch to school.  I was kind of a picky eater and school lunch wasn't very appealing...especially the canned green peas that would often end up on the menu.  I disliked peas in any form, with canned peas being the worse. There was one occasion that I had to buy school lunch in elementary school.  When the lunch lady started to put those dreaded canned peas on my tray, I told her that I couldn't have them.  I was allergic. 

Every day my mother made my lunch.  In elementary school, I carried my lunch in a dark, blue metal lunch box.  The lunch box had a thermos that was held in place with metal spring type clips. I may have had a character lunch box at some point.  But the dark blue one is the only one I remember. By junior high, I graduated to taking my lunch in a brown, paper lunch bag. What I had for lunch each day was pretty much the same. A sandwich, potato chips, maybe half an orange, carrot sticks or apple slices,  and perhaps some raisins and a cookie.

The sandwich could have been a peanut butter and jelly. With a PB&J by lunch time, the grape jelly on my sandwich had oozed through the bread.  Another sandwich that could show up in my lunch box was tuna fish.  The tuna fish would have been mixed with mayonnaise.  When I got to school, my lunch box stayed in my cubby or locker until lunch without the benefit of refrigeration. So by lunchtime...well, you can imagine what the sandwich was like.   Sometimes, my mother would make a tomato sandwich or a cucumber sandwich.  Again, mayonnaise that went unrefrigerated until lunch was included.  Tomato sandwiches would leave the bread pretty soggy as well.  Once in awhile, I had leftover meatloaf or roast beef sandwiches. A special treat was a Vienna sausage sandwich. Taking into account all the sandwiches that I ate in 12 years of public school that should have been refrigerated, it's amazing I never got food poisoning.

Back then, there was no such thing as resealable sandwich bags.  Everything that went into my lunch was put in a wax paper sandwich bag.  The result was that things weren't too fresh by the time lunch came around.  Carrots stick would usually be a little shriveled up.  Apple slices would turn brown.

My mother had a few little lunch time specialties that she often included in my lunch...raisins mixed up with flaked coconut and nuts, or graham crackers cookies.  Graham crackers cookies were the absolute best.  Mother would spread homemade confectioner sugar frosting on a graham cracker and place another cracker on top.  By lunch time, the grahams had softened and the icing had hardened. It was a great combination.  Today, my kids call those cookies "Grammy" cookies.

Occasionally, I'd get Campbell's Chicken Noodle or Tomato soup in my thermos. I bought milk at school for just a few pennies a day.  The milk came in a small square, heavily waxed cardboard carton.  To drink it, you had to pull the top of the carton open and then insert a straw. 

Regardless of all the pitfalls with my school lunches from home, I usually ate everything. In my opinion, it was much better than eating what was served up in the school cafeteria.