School Lunches

I’m reading through “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott, and in chapter five she talks about school lunches, or rather she prompts her students to write about their experiences with school lunches. She discusses how no matter what state they grew up in or type of school they attended, school lunches and the anxieties and social rules attached to them were similar across the board. As a homeschooler, my only experience with “real” school lunches were from popular culture. So, Anne I’m not sure what you would make of this, but here are my memories of school lunches from the perspective of a homeschool kid in the 1990s and early 2000s

Lunches were informal meals at our house. Mom, or an older sister would call us into the table at the eat in kitchen, or sometimes the dining room table where there would be plates sandwiches cut into quarters, baby carrots and sometimes a bowl of chips.

“Did you wash your hands?” the older sister, or our mom would question us.

We would shake our heads and tromp back to the bathroom. Sometimes we would pretend we lived in a boarding school and line up behind one another to wash up, sometimes we would all try to wash our hands at the same time. Regardless, the counter would be soaked once the four of us were finally clean.

When I was really little, we almost always had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I remember when I was five or six and met a kid who was allergic to peanut butter.

“But what do you eat for lunch?!” I blurted out, not being able to comprehend how someone could get through the day without the sticky substance. I remember once asking one of my older sisters why the little kids always had peanut butter and jelly. I can still see her cutting her exotic tuna fish sandwich diagonally and putting a handful of chips between the two halves. Don’t ask me what sister it was, but the plate was white with a blue rim.

“When you’re old enough to make your own lunch, you can make something else.” she informed me as she picked up her fancy lunch and headed into the dining room. I probably stuck my tongue out at her as she walked to the table.

Sometimes the veggie that accompanied the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches would vary, but normally it was baby carrots. We used to gnaw them down on all sides until only the core remained, which was always sweeter. Sometimes you would get a bad carrot that tasted like pine trees. I’m not sure why they tasted like pine trees, but they always did. And then we would dare each other to eat them. The potato chips were usually ruffles, and whoever got the biggest one was the winner. We would stack them up into piles and see who’s would fall over faster, or break a chip in half and then hold it back together and ask each other “broken? or not broken?”. We were so clever.

As I got older, I remember the type of sandwhich would change. We didn’t always have peanut butter. Sometimes it was cream cheese and jelly, or egg salad or tuna fish. I used to love making myself cream cheese and alfalfa sprout sandwiches. I’m sure we branched out and ate other things for lunch besides just sanwhiches, but I don’t really remember those days. What I do remmeber is that my mom always read to us at lunch time.

We would all sit down and start eating and eventually she would arrive at the table with her plate of food (I don’t remember now if she ate the same food we did). She would take a bite or two and settle us down before reaching for whatever current book we were reading and opening the pages.

“Now, where were we?” she would ask, and all of us would start talking at once, reminding her where we left off in the story.

And she would read and read and read to us. We read Narnia, and The Little House on the Prairie books. We read classics like Little Women and Tom Sawyer and The Secret Garden. Usually, she would only read a chapter or two before closing up the book and reminding us to get out our math books, or history, or go outside and play. But sometimes, when we would finish eating someone would grab pieces of paper and colored pencils and we would push our empty plates (you finished all of your food at my house), to the side and we would draw or color or sketch while Mom read. I would normally draw what I thought the characters would look like or perhaps try and replicate the cover of the book Mom was reading, or try and sketch my little sister as she colored across the table from me. I think I still have some of those drawings, the ones deemed worthy at least. And occasionally, Mom would stop reading to answer a question one of us would have about the story, or about drawing. My Mom was and still is a fantastic artist. I think when I was young, I just assumed everyone’s Mom knew how to draw, and paint and sketch.

For dessert, which we had sometimes, we had cookies, or maybe some strawberries or as a last resort, a handful of chocolate chips from the freezer. We would much on them and maybe sip tea one of the older sisters had made for everyone. Eventually, Mom would put the book down and we would clear the table and do the dishes, and lunch would be over until tomorrow, where we would most likely be having pbj.

-HR