I was bemused by it all. Mainly because, for the most part of my school years, I never got a school lunch.
Flashbacking to the Grimes Elementary School in Mount Vernon, New York, we didn't even have a cafeteria. Since this was a neighborhood school, most of the kids lived within walking distance of the place. None of us had any idea what the inside of a yellow school bus even looked like.
So, as soon as we were paroled around noontime, each of us would troop home for an hour. Our school was on 11th Avenue. My house was on 15th Avenue. Four relatively short blocks. But, being me, I would dawdle around. A stop at the grocery store for a pre-lunch Ring Ding. Or a meander around the neighborhood to see what was doing. All my friends were in school. What the hell was I looking for?
God and innocent youth only know.
By the time I arrived home, my mother would have lunch ready for me. It was very basic and simple and never changed from kindergarten to the sixth grade.
Two slices of white bread. Wonder only.
Several slices of a cold cut. Ham, bologna, or my personal preference, Taylor Ham.
A dab of mustard.
Cut into four equal square pieces.
A glass of milk.
And, alongside the sandwich on the plate, was my side dish. Five green olives stuffed with pimentos. Not four. Not six. Five.
How was that random number chosen to be the daily ritual? I have no idea. Another question that I forgot to ask my parents.
I'd sit in the living room with the prepared luncheon on the coffee table in front of me. There would also be some game show on the television. I'd eat slowly as if the hour break should never end. Once the sandwich was devoured, I'd systematically attack the five olives. I would first carefully suck the pimento out of the olive. Then I would nibble at the olive. Most people would pop them into their mouths whole. Not me. I wanted to savor every delicious morsel.
Bulletin: I was a weird kid.
Now, given that our school days were divided into two parts with the lunchtime break, the noon hour provided us all with a wonderful device if we just were not up to a whole day of mathematical word problems. From time to time, I would attempt the following.
"Mom, I don't feel so good."
Yeah, right.
She'd put her hand on my forehead for the ultimate diagnosis.
I wasn't warm. I was fine.
If I really, really didn't want to go back for the afternoon, I would suddenly turn into Lucy Ricardo. My brain would work overtime in developing symptoms.
I'd sneak into the kitchen and sprinkle a little pepper into my hand. Achoo!
"Gesundheit. You're fine."
I'd start to walk with a slight limp. Oh, boy, I must have sprained my ankle in that dastardly gym class.
"It's not swollen. You're fine."
Desperate times called for desperate measures. You want to feel my forehead, lady??
I'd go into my bedroom and close the door. We were a radiator household and, if it was winter, the heat source for my "fever." As much as it hurt, I'd lay my forehead across the radiator.
See, Mom! I have a fever! My head is burning up.
"And I can still see the indention marks that the radiator made on your skin."
Damn!
Off to school for the afternoon, I would go.
Except for the feeble attempts at feigning sickness, the lunch time pattern did not change for all the years at Grimes School.
And, suddenly, we graduated to Washington Junior School, which was further away from home. A whole four blocks further. Again, there was no cafeteria facility. At lunch, you were on your own. Cast adrift. Free from torture for a whole hour.
But, how was I to manage a walk home that was now, oh, God, five minutes longer???
I viewed the trek home as if American forces were being asked to land on Normandy Beach all over again. There could be no wandering off course. There certainly wasn't time for a pre-lunch Ring Ding. And, wait! To save precious time, I might have to cut down to four olives?
Bulletin: I still was a weird kid.
Okay, I wasn't exactly Abe Lincoln walking twenty miles to school every day, but this walk was sheer torture for me. I might as well have been crawling over broken glass while wearing shorts. To ease my pain, my mother had an ingenious idea.
"One day a week, I'll give you money and you can eat out on Fourth Avenue."
This was the main shopping district of Mount Vernon, New York. Two blocks away from my junior high school and just loaded with luncheonettes.
Hmmmm? If I price-shopped my meals, I could use a little of the cash for the purchase of a comic book. But, still, I thought....
I'd be away from home for an entire day?? How would that be?
Back then, I may have been only twelve years old, but parents were a lot more trusting of the surrounding environs than they would be today. My mother totally trusted me to feed myself well and manage to act like a semi-adult all by myself.
So, for one lunch hour a week, I was a big deal. My selection of my desired luncheonette for that day was something akin to filling out an Oscar ballot. Gee, I'm feeling like tuna salad today. Who does that better? The lunch counter at Woolworth's or the one at H.L. Green's? Decisions, decisions.
I'd feel like a Manhattan businessman there on that lunch stool. Letting the waitress cater to my every need. A perfect training ground for whatever career I would enter into. Because, frankly, any job is all about what you're having for lunch.
I'd gobble down my sandwich with some side potato chips and a pickle slice. I'd look around at the other patrons. Enjoying their post-meal cigarette or a cup of coffee. The waitress would saunter over and ask me if there was anything else she could get for me.
"Ummm, do you have any olives?"
Dinner last night: Roast beef and creamed spinach at the Whisper Lounge.
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