The change in the school hours meant going to the back hall closet at home and unearthing my metal lunch box with its perfectly fitting thermos bottle. I can still see the picture on the outside of it--Roy Rogers with his handsome smile, arm raised in a huge wave of hello, his cowboy hat sitting snugly on his head while he perched on his golden palomino pony, Trigger.
My lunches, on the other hand, were not as memorable. Some days it was bologna with mustard or peanut butter and marshmallow, while on Fridays, tuna fish was a regular.
The thermos was always filled with hot chocolate milk which cooled to a drinkable temperature by lunch time after sitting on the classroom window sill all morning long. Unfortunately, in those days, the thermos had a glass lining, so if I happened to drop my lunchbox while being jostled by the forty kids funneling into the same small aisle leading to the back windowsill, I held my breath as I bent to pick it up, dreading the telltale sound of tinkling glass, as the broken pieces inside hit each other as they were shaken in the hot chocolate. If that unfortunate accident happened on the same day as an undesirable lunch, I was out of luck as far as food and a drink was concerned until I got home after school. There were no cafeterias in Medford elementary schools in those days, and no grilled cheese sandwich magically appeared to fill the void. Hunger followed me the rest of the day, but luckily that was a rare occurrence. My parents wanted us to have a decent lunch and made every attempt to make lunch appealing while being frugal and health conscious.
It is amazing to think of an elementary school with no designated lunchroom or cafeteria. We ate in our classrooms, at our desks, with the teacher eating her lunch along with us. Depending upon the teacher, we may be allowed to talk quietly with our neighbors. Once everyone was finished eating, we might spend ten minutes playing a quick game like “Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button” or listening to the teacher read aloud a few pages in a book like The Last of the Mohican’s or Little Women. But no matter what, lunch period was quiet and well controlled.
After April vacation, our school schedule changed back to the 8:35 am start, and I walked home for lunch once again. As far as I was concerned that really was the best arrangement because home was a place of people, appealing food smells, and lots of comfortable family rituals. Mom and my younger sisters were always there. Dad was there most days, too, choosing to walk home from work each lunch time after his last morning patient had been seen. Lunch at home varied from day to day and was colorful and tasty. It might be grilled cheese and tomato, piping hot left over spaghetti, or any variety of seasonal sandwich. We drank cold milk and didn’t have to worry about broken glass. With the family sitting around the kitchen table, the room came alive with chatter and noise, but, once we kids had finished eating, we were excused from the table. At that point we might get the mail from the thin black mailbox outside the back door, check how the garden was growing, or watch a few minutes of the "Big Brother, Bob Emery" tv show, before heading back to school.
To me, single sessions could wait until I was in junior high because, unlike at the Wait School, there would be a cafeteria with food to purchase in an emergency, a table to sit at where I could eat and talk with friends without hunger or consequence, and, oh, yes, there would be lots of happy, comfortable noise.
Pictures: Etsy & Google images
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