Here’s an old joke.
How do you quiet a room full of antsy,
hungry, exuberant kids?
You clunk the mic.
Get it?
No, of course you don’t. I made it up,
which subsequently may account for the lack of pre-perceived laughter that I –
you know – pre perceived.
Well, you may not get it, but the kindly
cafeteria matron sure did. She was a gray haired little old lady ancient enough
to have taken tutelage from Pavlov himself. You know, the guy with the bell and
the dog? Every time he rang the bell, the dog knew it was mealtime.
In my earliest elementary years, I had
thought that maybe she had these frail, clumsy hands that couldn’t hold tight
to the mic and that’s why it bumped so loud, so often.
Wrong!
Whenever that thump pounded from the PA,
the room turned from unruly anarchy to one of hushed expectance.
It was genius.
There was no call to quiet down, no teasing
taunts of “I can wait,” while we sat there, stomachs rumbling, tongues gliding
back and forth over lips soon chapped. She would click the mic on with a flick
of the thumb, from the speakers above came an audible hum.
That’s about as poetic as it gets.
Thunder rumbled when that microphone
clunked once and then twice over the aged wooden stage like a prop plane
bouncing along the runway before reaching take-off speed. Airborne, it hovered
before her mouth. The assembled grew silent.
“Table one for hot lunch,” her rasp
reverberated in mirthless monotone.
Sans salute, the structured students
stood.
Tables two through five looked on in
awe.
With a side dish of jealousy.
Table Five, forever last to be summoned,
salivated
I saw it.
I was a Table Five tenant.
“Table one,” her voice echoed. “Proceed.”
With Cub Scout cadence, the troop
tromped to their spoils, simmering in silver shimmering
(not really)
troughs beneath a mounting misty miasma
of fragrant fog that promised quintessential cuisine reserved for only A(B-C)-list
clientele.
I didn’t think the school Principal
could have commanded the respect that this woman held. It
was impressive, it was daunting, and I remember from the earliest days of
taking my meals in the school cafeteria that it was a little scary too.
The order was given.
The order was followed.
I never stood.
I didn’t have to.
You see, while I was taking my meals in
the cafeteria, I was subsequently taking my meals to the cafeteria.
I was a brown bag lunch kid.
It’s not that I was poor.
I was picky.
A childhood affliction for which no cure
could be found.
Mom packed my lunch each day, and I was
always okay with the butter and jelly on white bread sandwiches.
Yes, I said butter.
I have an issue with peanut butter. I
don’t think it’s a peanut allergy, though it might be. I wouldn’t know. I’ve
never tried peanut butter. The smell alone forces my throat closed. A knife
with peanut butter remnants left in the sink for me to wash
(I’m always doing dishes)
(Always)
could mean certain death.
A constricted airway leads to restricted
oxygen flow to the brain and well… Land
O’Lakes lightly salted butter and Welch’s
grape jelly between two slices of Wonder
white bread made a fine meal.
So did Spam.
You know, that gelatinous luncheon meat
that comes from the Spig?
Mom would fry up the Spam the night
before, put it between two pieces of (not so) lightly buttered white toast,
wrap it, brown bag it and throw it in the fridge. The following day I would
carry it around in my book bag until lunchtime.
Nothing said nutritional Nirvana like
day old Spam served at room temperature.
My grandfather would beg to differ.
Having served in World War II, he had had his fill of Spam, which was never in
short supply. His nose would wrinkle and his eyes would narrow every time I
mentioned it. It did help to further my educational studies however.
“Where I come from buddy, Spam is a four
letter word,” he would tell me.
Well, it didn’t take a 5th
grader to figure that out.
Even in abundance, it must have been
worth something back then. You needed a key to open it! Every package of yummy
Spam came complete with a small metal key affixed to the bottom of the round
rectangular can. Cooking it was the easy part. It was the pre-pan procedure
that took a little work.
Step 1: Locate the small metal tab on
the right side of the can.
Step 2: Work the tab open using the
fingernail of your choice being careful not to cut the tender skin underneath.
Nothing says worse pain than paper cut than an abrasion beneath the nail.
Step 3: Insert the protruding tab through
the rectangular hole in the top of the key. (It’s sort of like threading a
needle, something that I would know nothing about because I don’t sew).
Step 4: Twisting in a counter-clockwise
direction (south, if the can is facing north, west, if facing east), peel away
the strip of metal until a full rotation of 360 degrees is completed. This
refers to the journey around the can as opposed to the consistent twirling of
the key in motion, which will have achieved a full 360 degrees many times
before reaching its final destination.
Step 5: Remove the top portion of the
can, and very unceremoniously dump the lump of greasy goodness into the pan.
Don’t worry about the protective slime like jelly that oozes out behind it.
It’s edible.
I think.
Yes, lunch was an education. In this
lesson alone, we have breached math, spelling and physics.
“Table Five for extra’s,” the never
merry matron intoned.
In the interest of time, I have skipped
tables one through four to leave room for this next piece of vital grade school
trivia. It was neither snacks, nor dessert. The call to arms following the main
meal was a call to extras. I don’t
even know what that means. Maybe the nice old lady possessed some type of
crystal ball, had seen into the future (our present) and had reached the
realization that the terms snacks or dessert were unacceptable. Extras had a nice ring to it. It was
generic, it did not draw attention to the food class system – meat and
vegetables being upper class, fruits and dairy being middle class, snacks and
desserts…well, from the wrong side of the tracks. Extras was politically correct in a time when political correctness
had yet been considered. Extras made
us all better children. A little larger in girth maybe, but overall, we were
fine, upstanding, respectful little citizens.
Lunch in elementary school was so much
more than feeding, frolic and the occasional food fight. The cafeteria with its
long metal tables rife with sharp edges (that would never fly in today’s super safe-conscious
society) and warped wooden stage pulled so much more than double duty as an
eatery at mealtimes and an auditorium at others.
It was a classroom too.
And to the matron whose name I never
knew,
I take this moment to offer a heartfelt
thank-you.
(Hey, check it out. The poetic part
didn’t end where I thought it would).
