Lunch Box

 

Back in the day when we were hiding under our desk to avoid the atomic bomb, when the bell rang for lunch you had two options. Every school had a cafeteria with plastic trays to get a plate of mashed potatoes, carrots, some sort of imitation meat (either brown or tan) covered in gravy and jello for dessert. Large black women served the grub and it was always cold. Don’t remember what the price for this but I rarely spent coins for a mid-day meal.

My mother stuffed a tin lunchbox with nutrition before I was leaving for school. It was always a surprise to open it up at the lunch table with my friends and devour the goodies.

The tin box was about 10” x 5” x 3” with a single latch to open what was to be the nourishment for the day that was prepared hours ago. This was a time before plastic zip bags so everything was wrapped in the new aluminum foil or saran wrap. If there was produce like an apple or banana, they were thrown away searching for the little bag of M&M’s. Sometimes we would trade sandwiches with others. Sometimes our lunch was just stolen and we left hungry.

The lunch box was decorated in familiar television figures. I think mine was Roy Rogers but it could have been Hopalong Cassidy or Mickey Mouse. It was a great marketing tool.

There was also a matching thermos. There was no space to put the thermos inside the lunch box so it was carried separately. It was small and carried about a cup of liquid and had a coke stopper that leaked.

It was a hassle to carry books and a lunch box and a thermos. Backpacks were not popular yet so the kids just lugged all the stuff from home or the bus to the classroom spilling lunch and messing up books. The alternative was going hungry.

Later I got a lunch box like the coal miners used with a space for the thermos in the lid. I still had to be hauled around and stored somewhere until the meal time bell.

By high school I’d dumped the lunch box. I probably ate at the cafeteria or didn’t because I had a breakfast and a dinner so lunch was not that important. Maybe that is why I wasn’t paying attention in school?

In college the vending machine fed me. I had too many art supplies to carry to include a lunch box.

The first years of work, I’d bring in a thermo for two cups of coffee made hours before. These were the new plastic screw tops that keep everything warm and neat. I even had a person who made leather belts for Civil War re-enactors to make me a holster to carry my thermos to free up my hands on the bus.

All this was becoming a hassle so I’d take a ‘coffee break’ at the coffee shop next door for a cream filled doughnut and a month old coffee in a Styrofoam cup.

When ‘Star Bucks’ came out with $5 cup I stopped.