Writing Exercise

I started reading a new book this past weekend called Bird by Bird on the suggestion of a friend of mine (thanks Carrie). It's a self-help book for writers, and it's the first that I've read that has not only kept my interest, but has also given me some very interesting drills and exercises to help with my ever-crippling writer's block. One of them is to write about what you can remember about school lunches, and this is what I came up with (Warning: this is a little longer than most of my posts, and it may contain some errors. Part of the exercise is not to worry about correctness, but rather to ramble onto the page, take one piece of it, and write something else):

 

School Lunch

    I remember when school lunches were both the most relieving and most terrifying things on the face of the planet. It really is hard to write about, as there were so many facets that went into the inner-political web that was elementary school. Honestly, when somebody asks me to recall something about a school lunch, I don't remember all that much about middle or high school (other than the senior table throwing random things at our freshman table…and my lacrosse players wonder why I'm so hard on the freshman nowadays. Bastards). All I can recall is elementary school; specifically, fifth and sixth grades.

You know what I'm talking about. It was that time in everyone's life when they start to notice that not everything revolves around their parents and how much they're getting for Christmas that year (although, a lot did still revolve around the latter at that time). This is when you started noticing the opposite sex, and how it freaked you out that not every girl or boy was so disgusting to you anymore; or when you started wondering how to make that weird smell go away (that happened far later for me, which ended up costing me a BIG price socially); or when the hierarchy of bully vs. victim was starting to shift, because the victims were starting to physically catch up to the bullies (but not for everyone, which we'll cover later). Generally speaking, I think we can all agree that it was a very awkward time.

Let's just start with the basics. Where were you when you heard the dismissal bell and the teacher told the class to get in line to leave for lunch (barring the condition that you had to be in alphabetical order, which did nothing but create utter chaos for the average 11 year old)? Were you in the front, back, or middle of the line? While we, as adults, don't look at this as overly important, as children we saw this time of the day as a strategically critical part of the war involving the social pecking order that had been occurring since we got on the bus that morning (were you in the front or the back of the bus, or were you one of the social royalty who had parents that cared enough to drop you off every day?). And then there was the way you behaved in line. At Rehoboth Elementary, I can remember the generally cool kids being middle-front and causing some sort of harmless ruckus, such as giving his/her friend in front of him a flat tire (where you step on the heel of their shoe) as revenge for beating them to the spot closer to the front of the line. I can remember thinking that these kids enjoyed being popular, but inwardly wished that they got the straight A's that the kids in the front of the line took home.

Personally, I can remember being in the middle-back with all of the other socially awkward children. Those behind me were the kids that everyone laughed at and wished that they could be around all the time for sheer entertainment, but would receive a swift fatherly ass-kicking should they ever be seen in public with them (this from the same people who always try to say that nobody is better than us…but apparently we're better than other people). On the flip side, a beating was in order if one of these kids gave you even the most remote of "hello" or head nods and it wasn't returned with some sort of mutual acknowledgement. Ah, the politics of youth.

Let's move from your place in the lunch line to your actual position in the lunch room, itself. I can't speak for private school lunch rooms, but as a public school kid, I can say that we were generally left to our own decisions on where to sit (until that time in 5^th grade when one kid put another kid's head through a door window for saying something about his mamma…another very serious faux pas in our young world). There were the cool tables, which were a healthy mixture of girls, boys, and races that banded together wherever they would get the most attention from everyone else; there were the nerdy tables, which split themselves up by sex and race, but generally had tables near each other in the middle of the room (thus, closer to authority figures should something go wrong); there were the trouble-makers, who also separated themselves by sex and race and mostly stuck to the corners of the room; and then there were the rest of us. I use "us" intentionally, as this is where I fell in elementary school.

We were the leftovers from those who failed to make a definitive decision about where we belonged as children, and even though we didn't realize it at the time, we made our own sect of the lunch room. Our group consisted mostly of kids who weren't the best looking and were painfully shy of everyone around us. We didn't get the best grades, but we weren't a huge cause for concern for the special education department, either. I've come to this conclusion about myself during the majority of my childhood at this time: I could have done much better in school. I was smart enough to get straight A's, but I was also concerned about where I fit socially. Those two things battling it out in my 11 year old mind was enough to make my confidence wither away like a slug that's been doused with a mountain of salt. I'm not saying this to get any kind of sympathy—as I don't feel that way anymore, I'm well aware of my friends and intelligence, and I genuinely love where I am in my life—but I know that many people could relate to me at that time, and that's what made up our group.

Moving on, there was also the question of the actual lunch. Those kids that brought their own lunch were always met with a sideways glance. Sometimes their lunches would be better than what you got in the lunch line, and sometimes you would feel so sorry for them that you felt the need to give them some of yours.

I can remember very specifically when I was in 6^th grade, I begged my mom to make my lunch for me because I was being picked on in the lunch line. She finally conceded and one morning, she gave me my very own brown bag which she said had my lunch in it. I gave her one of the biggest hugs I can remember giving anybody. When lunchtime came, I opened the bag and was immediately disappointed to find a very humbly made peanut butter and jelly sandwich…not even wrapped. There was nothing else, just the sandwich; no drink, no extra snack (I so envied the kids who got gummy treats in their lunch), and no extra money which with to buy these things from the lunch line. When I pulled the sandwich out and began eating it, my friend Jason asked what else I had gotten in my lunch, to which I didn't even reply…I just put my head down and quietly ate my sandwich. He took the bag from me and looked inside. I fully expected him to make some sort of announcement about my predicament to the table (as was the custom at 6^th grade lunch), drawing many jeers and jokes at my expense, but without saying a word, he just reached in his own bag and gave me his extra juice. My other friend, Brandon, was sitting across from me and noticed what was going on, and he reached in his own bag and very discretely slid a fruit roll-up in my direction. People often say how cruel kids can be (and they can), but it's mostly my friend's various acts of kindness that stick out in my mind from my youth.

But, I've digressed. The lunch line was an adventure that would take an extra twenty or so pages to describe, so I'll refrain from that. Some kids were lucky enough to have parents that would give them a whole $3 dollars so that they could buy double lunch, but most of us just got the standard $2 dollars (it cost $1.50, and who can trust an eleven year old not to let two quarters slip out of his/her pocket?) which bought us the main course, a milk or 2 juices (they were significantly smaller), a fruit cup, and a cookie. The fruit and juice were often used as tools of barter. On almost a daily basis, I would trade with a friend of mine because his mother would constantly pack rice crispy treats in his lunch. This was before the days of individually wrapped treats from Kellogg…these were homemade. Yeah, some kids have it really rough, don't they? He hated marshmallow, so I was always able to trade my chocolate chip cookie for his rice crispy treat. He and I are very good friends to this day.

Some of the nerdy kids would use their fruits and cookies as means of protection (on a side note, those nerdy kids are now some of the coolest people I know and are dating REALLY hot girls…oh, the irony) from the various bullies. This was a vital part of their survival. I attribute it to our situation with Kuwait…we'll give you cheap oil as long as you keep those lunatics from the north out of our hair. Sometimes these items could be used to convince the actual bully not to beat them up, or to hire an even bigger bully to whoop the other bully's ass (this was my favorite tactic). Again, some of the kids that I paid to protect me are still very good friends of mine.

School lunch is something that shapes all of us in ways that we can't even begin to imagine at the time. Even though this was just a writing exercise, it was really fun to look into my past and make something out of it. Excuse me for now, I think I'll write a few chapters of my new book.