As I was web surfing recently, I came across a chart
of the "5 Basic Food Groups". The only other places I've ever seen
one was in our Health text books in school and on the wall of our old school
cafeteria. When I was in grade school, the cafeteria used to be in the basement
of the old section of the school. It was a dark dingy place and right off to
the right was the room we called "The Dungeon". All the walls were
painted with that ugly public green or I always called that color, "gas
chamber green". When it was lunch time, which was my second most favorite
time, the first being dismissal to go home, the teacher would say, "All those going home for lunch may go
now". Then, "All those who brought their lunch may go to the cafeteria". Finally, she said, "All those who are buying their lunch
may go now". As I recall, Tim and I "brought" our lunches up
to around the 4th grade or so, after that, we ate in the cafeteria. Sometimes
before this, we ate in the cafeteria if our mother was out of "lunch
stuff", or just didn't feel like packing lunches since it was easier to
hand us a quarter on our way out to wait for the bus (bus 4).
I have vivid memories of the old cafeteria. We would
go down what then seemed like a very long flight of old wooden stairs that were
worn down from countless other school kids who had trod before us in the past
several years. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, we would either go to
the left into the cafeteria if we "brought" our lunch, or would turn right
to buy it. The line was along the right wall. Against the left wall were 2
voting machines that were always covered with gray tarps. Many times, we guys
tried to get a look at one, but some teacher would always tell us to keep away
from them and to get back into line. On the wall over us was a chart of the
"5 Basic Food Groups". The chart had a big round circle with 5
"slices" of each food group. I never could understand why they had it
there since we kids never got to decide what to have for lunch. In addition, as
far as I was concerned, my "5 basic food groups" were pop, Popsicles,
Twinkies, bubble gum, and candy for desert. Maybe the cooks checked the chart
as they came in to prepare our lunches. The only time we paid any attention to
the menu was if we were having hot dogs, which would excite all us guys. We
would exclaim, "Hot Dog, we're
having hot dogs! Once and a while some jerky kid would spread it through
the line that we were having hot dogs. After finally getting our tray, our
hopes were dashed when we found that they were having something else, not hot
dogs! In those days, we had no idea what we were having for lunch. We only went
on rumors, which were not always true or until we got our trays and started to
slide them down the tray aisle with the 3 raised wooden ribs. If they would
have published the menu ahead of time as they do these days, we could have
brought our lunch if we didn't care for what was being served that day. On the
other hand, I'll bet they deliberately didn't let us know because they could
collect more profit when we had to buy our lunches. AH HAH! I've uncovered yet
another conspiracy theory, which I'm very adept at doing!
Our trays were brown Bakelite and the dishes and
plates were white glass with 2 blue lines running just below the edges. We also
had real silverware. Along with the daily menu, they always had chili. You
could only get chili in lieu of the menu items if you had a note from home!
Strange wasn't it. I never did discover the rationale for that. Once and a
while, I'd pester my mother and get the coveted "Chili Note". I
always felt so cool when I could get only chili! That chili was really good, it
was 2nd only to Chuck Nottke's chili at Bar 61 in Berlin Heights. We
would then turn left and come to an old wooden oak table on our right where we
would pay our 25 cents to Mrs. Buchwald. After she took our quarter, she always
said, "Thank you" to each kid. It made me wonder if SHE
kept all the money for herself since she always seemed so happy to get our
quarters! Sometimes on Mondays I would give her $1.25 and say, "I want to pay for the whole
week". This no doubt was precipitated by our mother using the Law of
Averages figuring that some times I would lose the daily quarter before lunch.
Mrs. Buchwald collected our lunch money from the time I was in the 1st
grade until I graduated for high school. That's a lot of "Thank you's"
over the years. I imagine if she actually did keep all the lunch money that she
had a great retirement in some mansion in Hawaii or the Caribbean. On the other
hand, she more than likely used all the embezzled lunch money for a larynx
replacement as a result of all the years of "thank you's" to every
kid. I've often wondered if it made people suspicious when she paid for
everything in quarters.
The lunchroom tables had thick oak legs and the tops
had a green linoleum-like covering on them. The chairs were also light oak with
thick legs and cross braces.
Around 1959 or so, they built the new High School and
a cafeteria. Thereafter all kids ate there. There was a lot more room for a
line and it was much brighter and much roomier so I didn't feel so cramped.
I've had life-long claustaphobia, so this was a welcome change. That way the
walls had much further to go before they finally closed in on me which gave me just
enough time to eat and get out of there. The new cafeteria had 2 serving windows,
which allowed 2 lines for faster service. I always went to the window on the
right, not only because it moved faster, but Mrs. Howell was always serving in
that window. She liked me, not surprising since I always was irresistible to
older women when I was a kid. This unfortunately carried over to high school
when any girl I always liked didn't care for me (which was ALL of them), but
their mothers always liked me. Hmmm, small comfort then. Anyway, Mrs. Howell
always gave me extra big servings of the things she knew I especially liked. If
we wanted, we could get "doubles" of the main dish. All this at no
extra cost! After we got our trays, there was a cooler on wheels that was full
of small glass bottles of Bell Diary milk. We could get an extra bottle for 2
cents. Since I never cared for milk, I never got one. Now if they would have
had chocolate milk, I would have grabbed as many as I could carry. We then went
to the ubiquitous Mrs. Buchwald and paid her our 25 cents, for which she was
still thanking each kid personally. No doubt, she was adding to her growing cache
of embezzled lunch money to pay for that mansion on some South Pacific Island
paradise after her retirement.
The trays in the new cafeteria were either green or
yellow fiberglass and had preformed indentations to hold the various delectables
and the silverware. If some kid across from us didn't eat something we liked,
we would put the trays together and scrap out the chow with our spoon before
they put their tray in the dirty tray window. When they had chocolate pudding,
some of us would mix it in our milk so we could at last have chocolate milk.
Some of the fat kids would hang out by the empty tray-cleaning window and grab
any leftovers that hadn't been touched. The menu seldom changed from week to
week. On Mondays we had macaroni and cheese with butter sandwiches, and Fridays
we always had fish sticks with macaroni salad. In those days, they knew
Catholics were not allowed to eat meat on Fridays. Since I was a Protestant (at
least that's what they told me I was in those days), I liked fish sticks
anyway. We only got 2 fish sticks and I always wanted more. I guess I could
have hung out at the dirty tray window and gotten more of them to eat, but I
didn't for 2 reasons. The first was that I didn't want to hang around with the
fat kids, and the second was that I didn't really care for cold fish sticks in
those pre-microwave days.
If we were lucky, and our mothers gave us 5 or 6 cents
extra, after we had lunch we could go to the furthest window on our left and buy
a fudge bar for 6 cents or a ˝-ounce bag of Becker's potato chips for 5 cents.
The ultimate thing was to have 11 cents extra to get both. I only got the 5, 6,
or 11 cents extra occasionally, which really disappointed me when I didn't,
which was more often than not. All the "rich" kids got both every
day.
Later on in High School when some of us guys were
"too cool" to ride the bus or eat in the cafeteria, we would take our
quarter and go to Phil's Restaurant to eat lunch. (Watch for a future story
about Phil's). We had to make a choice of either French fries for 20 cents or a
hamburger for 25 cents. I usually got French fries. I ate so many French fries
in those days that I started to talk with a French accent. I probably would
have French kissed any girl, but would never have the courage even ask them for
a date much less French or for that matter, American kiss them either! Hmmm, I
wonder if one of the 4 foreign languages I studied (I was never that fluent in
any of them) later on included French because of eating all those French fries
during my "formative years"? That also makes me wonder if I studied
German because I ate too much German chocolate cake when I was a kid? I have no
idea about Hebrew or Greek! Eating too many Bagels maybe??? I practically lived
on pizza in college but never learned Italian. Maybe I'm on to something here. On
the other hand, eating in the school cafeteria all those years never made me
yearn to be a cook or a tray washer. Alas, yet another one of life's mysteries…
