Lunch at School continued...

So – I talked about the great lunch pails I took to school growing up. Today I thought I’d expound on a few similar memories.

How many of you remember getting milk in glass bottles at school? Before the nice little wax-cardboard ones we're all so used to now, we had our milk in glass bottles with little sealed paper caps. This was in early grade school, so it would’ve actually been in the mid to late ‘60s. Seems like hardly a week went by when someone didn’t drop and break one in the cafeteria causing quite the stir. And of course there was only one “variety” – milk! (I would guess it was what we all call “whole milk” now). We didn’t have any other options!


I also remembered what I consider now to have been the ultimate in “pinching pennies”. My mom would make lunches for us 4 kids, dad, and the occasional kid or relative that may have had an extended stay at our house. We were required to bring our lunch sacks (read “small, brown, paper bags”) home every day and make each one last for the whole week! As if that wasn’t bad enough, we also had to save our baggies if they weren’t messy. While the economics of this made sense, given our middle-class status and the sheer number we would’ve gone through, it always presented the challenge of avoiding being seen by classmates as I neatly folded my bag (with clean baggies inside) and tried to slip it into my back pocket undetected. Now - of course – my mom would be heralded as a forward-thinker, eco-green proponent, and role models for families everywhere… but back then – it was “Aww, mom!?!”, and “the OTHER kids don’t have to save their lunch sacks!”. Kudos to mom for sticking to her guns.

One last thing – We only got to buy it like 4 times a month, but the best lunches we ever got to buy at school? Pizza! Hot, square and loaded with great toppings!