School Lunch

The clock is ticking on my work release vacation. Either I find gainful employment in NH or the Ghost of Christmas past will haunt me until I flee to Labrador or Guatemala. I have some leads on a sloppy Joe on a wheat bun. I remember in 1977 shuffling up to the Little Harbor Lunch counter with my plastic milk token and fifty cents for a bologna sandwich and fries. Kids were different then. We survived on Fritos and Twinkies...because we had absolutely no digital gadgets to slow our metabolism and I was chased around the playground non-stop by several bullies thereby helping me work off the fattened milk and pizza and frosted flakes. I ran like I was training for a marathon. My yellow Local Union 1947 hat (I was always a socialist) was the gold ring of the playground. Kids would chase me for hours trying to get it but I was too quick. Then we would play "smear the queer" and it would be me against a dozen kids and then I'd fall and the hat would be the receptacle of piss and spit and tears and blood. And I'd put it back on in prideful resentment and march back to class where we would have vocabulary contests pertaining to the butterfly cocoon. I'm sure this brings back similar memories for everyone.

I do not remember eating Chicken Salad or anything called a "fajita" until at least 1988. Listen, on Thanksgiving we had Indian Corn and that was as international as it got in 1977. Hell, the food pyramid on our lunch room wall was 80% meat and milk and cheese and way up at the top was the peak where some clown had written in "Corn Chips". The class roster was like a list of immigrants who had died on the Titanic: Schwartz, Bleacher, Strangus, Eveland, Rodgers, Tobin, Webster, Allard, Gillingham, Tate, Bolko, Sullivan, McAullife. And we all ate bologna sandwiches, a bag of chips and a box of milk. If we were lucky and our parents were still married we might get an apple or one of those peanut butter wafer bars. But most of us were content with bubble gum. Then we'd be unleashed onto the asphalt kickball field or play Off The Wall or hide in the concrete water drainage tunnels.

Sorry I don't have anything more interesting to say today. It was easy to be entertaining when I was in Labrador. These days I'm more practical and boring. I walked a dog today and washed a car and cooked pasta. Sorry. At least I'm trying. I'm doing the best I can.