At my job they’re considering adding a cafeteria for the employees. Needless to say, I’m fully in favor of such a move. The building is way out in the middle of nowhere, so we have to bring our “lunch” (8 pm), or drive ten miles to Burger King.
And my lunch usually consists of two pieces of white bread, a cuppa two tree slices of turkey, a slab of American cheese, and a breakfast bar for dessert. Fukkin yum!
On Wednesday nights, our Friday, we usually have some stuff delivered from a pizza joint located god-knows-where, and that’s pretty good. But a full-blown cafeteria, only a few yards from my desk? Man, count me in!
Of course everybody will say it sucks, that’s required. There will be jokes about food poisoning, and rumors of nose-picking “chefs” and the like. People are as predictable as a post-Starbucks assplosion… But will it influence me? No, it will not. I will be their best customer; my name will eventually end up on a plaque near the deep-fryer.
And all this industrial-food talk has got me to thinking about the school cafeterias I have known… I went to three public schools in my life: Dunbar Elementary, Dunbar Junior High, and Dunbar High. And I logged many an hour in all three cafeterias, if you’ll excuse my use of the word “logged.”
Here are some highlights, off the top of my head:
One day I was going through the food line at the elementary school, and a rather severe cafeteria lady eyed me suspiciously, and blurted, “Hey, you’re that boy who spit on my house!” Then she cut my pig-in-the-blanket in half, and only gave me 50% of it.
WTF? What kind of crazy woman uses a pig-in-the-blanket as a weapon against a fourth grader? It was a retaliatory move, involving a wiener in pastry!
I didn’t know what she was talking about, but if I’m going to be punished for spitting on a house(?!), then I’m spitting! I sat and schemed with Bill, and think I planned to eat an entire sleeve of Oreos before visiting the woman’s home. Heh. But, unfortunately, it was another project that never really got off the ground.
At that school we were allowed to go back for seconds, if there was food left over and we’d eaten everything else on our compartmentalized trays.
But there was usually some stuff served to us that wasn’t very good (like that slimy-ass spinach), so we figured a way around it. We ate what we liked, drank our milk, and put everything remaining inside the empty milk carton. Then we’d carefully adjust the top of the carton to appear normal, and go back through the line for the “good stuff.”
Sometimes our milk cartons were so tightly compacted, they weighed about three pounds. When we tossed them into the garbage, before leaving the cafeteria, there was often a loud THUD! as that bunker-buster hit bottom.
We never got caught, though. I bet kids are still using that technique today, in the very same lunchroom.
And speaking of seconds… One day there was a massive surplus of those little round potatoes they used to serve us. Know what I mean? They were round, and had no skin of them? Not bad!
Anyway, the cooks had way too many of the things, and we started having a contest to see how many we could eat. One kid had 36! I hit the wall in the mid-teens, I think, but plenty of others were in the twenties, or even thirties.
After news of our contest leaked to the teachers, and whatnot, they started asking us questions about it. But they were very sly, and acted as if they were amused by it all. “How many potatoes did you eat?” they chuckled.
And once they had the numbers collected, they dropped the bomb on us.
Every student who ate more than some arbitrary amount (13, maybe?) was marched into a room, and received a stern talking-to about gluttony.
Plus (get this!), we were forced to wear huge badges of disgrace for a week, made out of full-sized paper plates, designed to look like the face of a pig.
I’m not kidding… Across the pig’s face were the words NO SECONDS. We’d have to pin them to our shirts before going to the cafeteria, and sit there with pink ten-inch pig heads on our chests during the entire meal.
Hilarious. If they pulled some shit like that in 2009, dozens of people would lose their jobs, CNN would be there, and a team of counselors would be bussed-in to help the children cope.
Man, I wish I’d kept my too-many-potatoes badge… I’d like to wear it to the mall.
Also at the elementary school Bill and I were sitting there having our lunch one day, when some kid we called Shave sat down across from us.
He was an annoying little shit, always going on and on with nonsense. I remember him counting the coins in his pocket, saying, “One dollar, two dollar…” It didn’t matter what coin it happened to be, he called it a dollar. He bugged the hell out of us, on several levels.
And on this day Bill had had enough of Shave’s stupidity, and threw a fruit cup in his face. Remember those things? A little white paper cup, filled with fruit cocktail? Well, Bill tossed the contents of one directly into Shave’s face.
Incredible! I can still see that kid’s surprised expression, with heavy syrup dripping off his chin, and a peach cube sliding off his shaved head. And, once again, I don’t think anyone paid a price for it. Except Shave, that is.
I could undoubtedly come up with more stories, but need to stop. Maybe you guys can take over? Use the comments to tell us your memories of the school cafeteria.
Also, what was your favorite cafeteria food, and least favorite?
At the Junior High they had some kind of spaghetti casserole type of deal, with cheese melted on top. I loved that. But they also served a nasty-ass barbecue sandwich. It was kinda pink/beige in color, and had big white veins (arteries?) insinuated inside the “meat.” Unspeakably disgusting….
So, if you have anything on these subjects, we’d like to hear ’em. Or read ’em, whatever.
And I’ll see you guys tomorrow.
FIRST HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
HAHAHAHA second!
Man, that picture of Hitler without the ‘stache is scary. His eyes just pierce right into you with pure evil. The clean-shave look makes him perhaps even more sinister-looking, given that the moustache was kinda goofy-looking.
Hiya
Nickel
My high school used to serve some awesome beef turnovers. Ground beef wrapped in a puff pastry with nuclear-yellow gravy. I’ve been trying to replicate those things to this day. I’ve gotten it close, but not quite. I can’t figure if it’s the weird gravy or the mystery meat (horse? I dunno).
Favorite cafeteria food from school days: Creamed turkey on white rice. Man, that was good shit. I haven’t had it in about 35 years, but I still crave it. I oughta find a recipe and make my own.
Worst: Probably hamburgers, ’cause if you lifted the bun and looked at ’em, they, like Jeff’s BBQ sammich, were grey and had bits of arteries (and chunks of bone, if I remember correctly) in them. Didn’t matter whether they tasted OK or not, ’cause you lost your appetite after looking at ’em.
Apologies for the multi-posting today — I’m starting to feel like Shiny Rod.
Jeff – Saw this and thought you might like it since you like Hall & Oates.
shitmydadsays “What are you listening to?…I know who Hall & Oates are god dammit. It’s the mustache guy and the gay man.”
There was this kid in middle school, and later high school, who we called “Joe the Jap”. He was constantly in need of money and never paid it back. We all knew this. One time in the 6th grade Joe the Jap wanted $5. So I told him I’d give him the money if he’d eat a pack of Sweet Tarts and then use his finger to force himself to puke on the table we were sitting at in the cafeteria. He did it and we were all delighted. I considered vomiting to be the height of hillarity.
As the years went by we grew tired of simple vomiting and raised the bar to other things. It always seemed to happen in the cafeteria. When Joe started driving he was in even greater need of money (for gas, I guess) so he was willing to put on a real freak show.
One time we asked him to walk up to Mrs. Wyatt, who was the lady that took your dollar for lunch, and say to her, “I have to go to the restroom”. Then he was to stand there and piss his pants while maintaining eye contact. He got $20 for that stunt. He didn’t really get in trouble because he blamed it on a bladder infection (?!).
The all time best Joe the Jap stunt was when we convinced him to pull down his pants and shit on the floor during lunch. As kids from other tables started to notice they screamed in horror or laughed and it caused a lot of attention. The janitor lady ran over and tried to stop him but we kept telling him, “no shit, no money.” So white knuckled the table as she tried to drag him away and he was able to get off an 8″ turd. He got suspended for that one. But he was $30 richer for it.
Top 20, kiddies!
I can’t remember ANY meal from the Dunbar Elementary Cafeteria, except for the peanut butter sandwiches. I think I may have eaten over 1000 of them in six years there. Now, I hate peanut butter. I think I brought my lunch a lot.
On the other hand, I remember liking the BBQ sandwiches at DJHS. I would buy extra ones.
High school- I just remember drinking TJ Swan and premixed bottles of Tequila Sunrise for my lunch, in my car. Liquid lunch was the best.
Down to 285 pounds now. I may be overdoing the fish oil, cholesteral lowering, pills though, since I think the ten pounds have come out of my ass, rapidly, since I began taking them.
On IPOD right now- “Born Annoying”- Helmet
AngryWhiteGuy,
What kind of diet are you on? It sounds like you’re getting some decent results. You just take fish oil pills and eat less or what? I need to lose some weight, I don’t mind if it comes out of my ass.
I don’t remember eating anything at Roxalana Elementary but I sure wouldn’t complain, my grandmother was the cook and later Mrs. Settle. Why in heavens name did you eat in the cafeteria at DJHS? Bowling alley hotdogs or a fascheck run!! The only time I remember eating in the cafeteria at DHS was for breakfast after prom! Anything would have been good then.
Jeff, I can so see you and Bill (and a couple of others, I won’t name name Vincent and Jorge), getting even with the cook, but why waste a perfectly good package of Oreos?
The best were the pork egg rolls from Pinon Mesa Middle School. The rest pretty much tasted like deep fried turdlets.
i always loved the schools grilled cheese sandwiches. gubment butter and cheese. awesome! i keep trying to get my kids to smuggle one home but so far, nothing. i didn’t like the hamburgers though, something about them being soy burgers, before soy was “cool.”
I went to several schools growing up as my father was transferred many times. But one cafeteria in particular had a dessert called peanut butter confection squares. I even wrapped one up in a napkin and carried it around all day to let my dad taste it to see if he could duplicate it (he was a baker by trade). Since then, I found out it is kind of a “buckeye” cookie we yinzers in Pittsburgh get at weddings…. a peanut butter ball partially dipped in chocolate.
The other tasty dish I loved was called “beef manhatten”. Kind of a roast beef in gravy over mashed taters. Never inspected the beef close enough to see if it had veins, bones, hoof pieces or what have you. But then again, I would eat shit on a stick if it was dipped in gravy.
There was a kid at my school when I was in the 8th grade we called Larry the Duck. He was like in the 4th grade. We’d go around to all the empy trays and fill up an empty milk cartoon and give it to him to eat He would wolf it down. (He brought his lunch from home so it wasn’t like he was still hungry.) We didn’t have to pay him or threaten him or anything. It was disgusting. Nobody knew why he did it but you could count on him to do it every time.
When I was in High School my friend Jenny decided to shave her head. She was slightly crazy and she shaved it bald. We were in the cafeteria line and the lunch ladies were looking at her with disdain and she convinved them that she had cancer and actually cried. By the end of the line she had so much free food from them that we both ate free that day. Hee hee
Nothing good ever came out of the cafeterias around here. Nightmares include:
Sloppy Joes
Tater-tots (Steamed, mushy variety make me gag. Deep-fried and crispy is doable.)
steamed hamburger patties (too gray in color and rubbery to be real meat)
fruit cocktail or any other canned fruit
soggy fish sticks
opalescent lunch meat that allegedly was ham
canned peas and carrots
Bonus nightmare: digging through the trash, overflowing from the repulsive castoffs that no kid would touch, in search of my retainer. This usually ended with me losing my own lunch and crying crocodile tears so that the lunch lady would do the dirty work for me. Happened more than once. Apparently, I’m a slow learner.
No seconds allowed ever. Most of us just sucked everything down as quickly as possible so that we could get outside to play Tetherball or Four Square before all the spots were occupied. Tried to avoid Dodgeball after lunch because a bullseye shot to the gut meant projectile vomiting and wearing your gym clothes the rest of the day. Gotta love the short-shorts and tube socks of the 70s!
And back then, getting reduced or free lunch was so shameful that no one wanted to take the gubment up on the offer. Those who did were seriously ostracized. Nowadays, an inordinate number of children are on that program.
I never ate in the school cafeteria. The smells throughout the morning just nauseated me to no end. I can still smell that saurkraut. I went to Huntington High School for about 6 months in 1970. They didn’t even have a cafeteria. We got an hour for lunch and they actually allowed us to leave campus. Some days I went to the burger place across the street, some days I ate donuts from the bakery on the next block, or pizza from Gino’s (or whatever that place was called). It was great. Some students used the time to get their buzz on so the class following lunch was always interesting. In retrospect, I can’t believe they allowed this. I bet they don’t do it that way anymore.
Brynhildr: Oh!…the gym clothes back in the day! Wow..what a memory. Ours were a one piece little ditty; zipper front; solid navy blue on the bottom; white and navy blue stripes on top. Had to have the tube socks with nave blue rings at the top and white sneaks. We HAD to wear this winner no matter the size of the girl…no exceptions or substitutions.
In high school the cafeteria food they served sucked. But, they also had vending machines with warm things like jo jo’s, burritos, hot dogs, and corn dogs. One day my best friend bought a corn dog on a stick and sat at the table across from me and all our friends. He finished lunch first. After awhile he got bored and decided to blow the bag up that used to contain his corn dog. He went to pop the bag between his two hands for a loud cafeteria pop, but instead we heard a scream. He forgot to take out the condog stick and it went though his palm and protruded out the top of his hand stretching his skin like pee wee’s big top. We took him to the office with stick still inserted. That’s when he passed out. Ended up that he missed the bone and tendons. A couple of stiches and he was back at school the next day.
When I was in second and third grade, we only had what was called “hot lunch” once or twice a week. It was usually damn good, too. Thick-crust pizza with gooey cheese, deli-style submarine sandwiches, even vaguely exotic (to an eight year old) things like pasties and strombolis. It was all brought in by some local caterer the school had contracted with, and was very popular. During fourth grade, we were told we would be getting hot lunch everyday, and everyone was excited to be getting this delicious goodness on a regular basis.
But the school district pulled a fast one on us, and went with a different supplier. The new food was horrible, like little TV dinners only without the flavor: chicken cutlets that were about 60% filler, chili that tasted like heated catsup, bread slices that could be turned back into dough merely by rolling a piece of it between your fingers. The worst was the bland and cardboardish hamburger patty that was used in about two-thirds of the recipies. They would douse it in the aforementioned chili and call it a “Fiesta Burger,” they would serve it without a bun and call it a “Salisbury Steak,” they would put it in with some tepid spaghetti sauce and cheese and call it an “Italian Surprise.” Just nasty.
This food was quickly rejected by the student body across the board, and we were lectured about being a bunch of finicky complainers. Within less than a month, nearly everybody went back to bringing their own lunch. I don;t think I ever bought lunch at school again.
The only interesting cafeteria incident I remember was in 5th grade when a buddy started choking on something. He was actually turning blue. The teacher in charge tried giving him the Heimlich (probably a new method back then) and ended up breaking 3 of his ribs. The peice of food flew right into the face of a girl close by. She screamed and cried, and I laughed so hard I almost pissed my pants.
Favorite food? By far lil smokies and mac and cheese!
@Carla- gratz on your husband getting home safe. I got back last year and am in queue for another…joy.
This is another sign of growing up in a city in WV, verses out in the boondocks. I think it was not until the 7th grade that I went to a school with a cafeteria (that served food that is). I went to a lot of different schools; several of which do not exist anymore.
A wiener in pastry should never be used as a weapon! Good god man! Corndogs fall into that category! All pastry wieners are intended for love, not war!
I went to eat lunch with my daughter at her elementary school twenty-odd years after I managed to survive my own elementary school ordeal and I could have sworn they were still cutting up the *exact same pizza*.
When I was in the 7 and 8th grade, we had an open campus. It was the same school as Rich Rodriguez went to – as a matter of fact. I recall him knocking people in the head on the school bus.
I don’t have anything to offer regarding my days in the school cafeteria as a student, but I do have a story to share about being at lunch duty.
I teach at a high school, and about three years ago I was newly pregnant with my third child and had to patrol the cafeteria during my designated duty. I was queasy from the pregnancy to begin with, but when I saw a student put what must have equaled a cup and a half of ketchup in a bowl of chicken noodle soup to create TOMATO soup, I had to run from the room and barf in a nearby trash can. The smell in the room was bad enough, but the visual sent me over the edge.
Haven’t had chicken noodle soup since.
I attended so many schools; it would take a novel to just to get through kindergarten to middle school. The price you pay for being a military brat. One story sticks in head from my middle school days.
Being a very awkward teenager and just returning to my hometown of Burlington NJ from a school in Hampton VA, I found reconnecting with childhood acquaintances was becoming quite difficult. To avoid being ostracized, I hung out with the smokers, occasionally taking a puff just to show I was cool. We always hid out between a building and the statue of Wilbur Watts, also the name of the school, and did our dastardly deed. Since this was the bad ass crowd, not to many people fucked with us and we remained relatively safe from the threats and hazing by the jocks. They were afraid we might cough on them and give them some kind of disease.
I remember this day so vividly. After the bell rang for classes to start, we all grabbed our books and head into school for first period. I was finishing up the last puff so I smashed the cig on the ground and took off for the door. Some dickweed jock came running up behind me and pushed me into the door and didn’t even have the good graces to say excuse me. i was pissed and I recognized him as one of the asshole wrestlers who pinned me down in the gym and rubbed his funky ass arm pit in my face. It was time for retribution.
I sat through all my morning classes not even paying attention, just thinking of a way to get back at this douche wad. What made it worst was that I had seen him in my lunch period before with his other jock buddies. I would have my chance for revenge before the day ended.
Lunch time came around and we had “shit on a shingle” that day. For those who don’t know what shit on a shingle is, its ground beef in some horrible tasting tomato sauce served with mash potatoes and sitting on top of toast. Not a pleasant looking meal.
When lunch period started, I got my meal and hid behind a pillar so not to be seen. Sure nuff, said asshole comes strolling in with his entourage of hooligan’s grab-assing and all sorts of jock shit. After drinking my carton of juice, I opened the carton up and tried to make the folds as weak as possible then stuffing it full of the nasty crap and those watery mash potatoes. I folded it back up and waited for the right moment when they were so engaged in their own laughter and banter they would not see it coming.
They were so full on themselves and talking about their glories on the mat and conquest with the girls that they where oblivious to my presence. Then it came, he mentioned a name that just sunk into the pit of my stomach. This was all the catalyst I needed to launch my attack. I launched the carton in the air and it sailed towards its intended target with the grace of an Eagle sailing on the up currents of the wind.
Oh the name, I forgot to tell you about that. Well I had a deep crush on a girl at school named Tony Tupea. She was an Italian girl who in knew from grade school and we always walked to school in the mornings and I carried her books to school for her. Boy was I a sucker.
Oh, the carton is still in the air isn’t it? Ok, the carton came crashing down on his head splattering crap all over him and his crew. No sooner I started laughing my ass off then a teacher grabbed my shoulder and said come with me, you’re in big trouble son.
It was worth being expelled and the subsequent ass whopping I got that evening. My dad didn’t understand why I was laughing while he was whipping me. He quit in frustration and left nodding his head. I never forgave Tony for kissing him but that’s how love goes.
On the iPod now – “Koto Blues” – Hiroshima
Re: Bunker Cam
Jeff! You shaved your moustache!
Being a little fat kid, there were very few school cafeteria items I didn’t like and certainly always ate it all, but our county’s schools served the same chili throughout my entire career there and it was awesome!!! Especially at highschool when we could pile it high with all of the government cheese we could fit on it. The only thing I refused to eat was the cheeseburger suprise which was essentially a caserole made out of yesterday’s left over cheeseburgers (buns and all) with some extra cheese thrown in with some kind of glue to make it a caserole. I never understood that one, just give me cheeseburgers two days in a row, what’s the diff?
Swami Bologna – Thanks for reminding me.
I’ve said this before in the comments section – but where I went to high school, they actually let the students smoke in an area in back of the gym. I doubt that goes on today.
T Farty, I have eaten nothing but salads and vegetables, both of which I hate, since Friday and taken 2 of the omega 3 fish oil capsules three times a day. Also drank a lot of water. Ran a few miles and played hoops twice over the weekend….and mowed my sand. Am happy to have lost some weight, but the prison rape feeling back there sucks.
On IPOD right now- “Lies, Lies, Lies”- Ministry
We didn’t have a cafeteria in elementary school. In those days (I was born in 68) one parent income families were the norm. If you came by bus you could stay, but you had to eat at your desk and bring your own lunch. If you didn’t come by bus the school basically said tough shit, go somewhere else for an hour. I came from a single parent household (before it became the fashionable choice it is today) and it caused no end of grief.
In high school (no middle school in my area: K to 8 was elementary, 9 to 12 high, and we still had grade 13 for those destined for university) the cafeteria was run by some company that knew about as much about preparing food as Hitler did about human rights. Eating there was never a good option, but your choices were limited. I took a bus and if I slept in and didn’t have time to pack a lunch, it was off to the cafeteria for some Dachau burgers with French fries.
I had a similar story to your one about Shave. One day in high school we were sitting in the cafeteria before class. I had bought a huge tub-o-cola with no lid. This other kid, Matt, started throwing little balls of paper, trying to get one into my coke. I was in a foul mood, so I sat there smiling just daring him, as he kept shooting. When he finally sunk one, I threw the drink in his face and soaked him. There was a brief pause while everyone waited to see if Matt and I would fight but nothing ever came of it.
The elementary school I went to was the best food ever! The school consisted of kindergarten through 8th grade (in one building).
Some of the teachers taught two different grades in one room…ex: first and second in the same room, same teacher..etc.
In a small community like the one I grew up in, you might have a total of less than 200 students..K through 8th…
Anyway, the school had five classrooms, most of them were combined, depending on the size of the class. We had no cafeteria or gym so we were required to go into the hallway and get our lunch tray from a window that connected with the kitchen and carry it back to our desks.
Of course this gave the boys in my class AMPLE opportunity to wreak havoc.
There were twelve boys and three girls in my class. The boys were always doing disgusting things with their food. They’d put an open carton of milk high on a shelf in the classroom until it smelled so bad that Mrs.Espling would hunt it down and toss it.
They’d put those little paper cups of pudding or fruit in other people’s boots (we lived in Maine so you’d wear winter boots to school and then change into shoes).
There were contests to see who could stick the most macaroni and cheese under their desk and the hot fried bologna toss (the person who got their bologna to stick to the ceiling the longest won).
We never had a choice between chocolate milk or plain milk but this boy named Dean would fall for the old chocolate ex-lax in his milk every time.
Pure chaos….jeezum crow it was wild in that class. And you guys wonder where I get my weirdness from.
bikerchick — wow, a short, zippered jumpsuit? Glad we didn’t have that. Our uniforms were a t-shirt with the school name and/or mascot across the chest, usually too tight, thus exposing early bloomers to ridicule about their budding boobies. The short-shorts were made from stiff, scratchy canvas-like fabric that allowed you to stand them up in the corner when not in use. The tube socks had the requisite contrasting band at the top, further emphasizing the chub around my knock knees. Say hello to the beginnings of body image issues. It was not until high school that we were allowed to wear sweatpants, which were equally unattractive but hid flaws a little better. Damage had already been done though.
Pats of butter in fluted paper holders ALWAYS wound up on the ceiling, launched there on the end of a plastic spoon
Cafeteria rolls…pure heaven. I’m not sure what they were made from, but they were better than puppies and rainbows, MIXED TOGETHER! Dn’t recall much else of school lunch, as I almost always rbought mine from home, but if rolls were on the menu, I was buying.
And for some reason the Fairfax County schools always paired pizza with baked beans. That still strikes me as odd.
Ah – the gymsuit. Doubleknit polyester, BACK ZIP, abotu a 1-inch inseam on the attached shorts, and once you sweat even a DROP in it the smell would not wash out.
*Shudder*
No elementary schools around here with cafeterias, high school brought the cafeteria experience to life. When I went, the first few years the cafeteria was run in-house, and had decent food. One in particular that I fondly remember was Sloppy Joe tuesday. It wasn’t anything special by any stretch of the imagination, but the meat sauce for some reason tasted just right to me. I’d like to try one of those again. Then the evil years began… Beaver Foods took over cafeteria duties (probably the same evil cafeteria conglomerate that Tyrosine was subjected to, since they had a strangle hold on school cafeterias in this city). Shitty expensive crap only to be eaten if you where short on cash to get something from one of the joints around the school.
As for your proposed cafeteria Jeff, I predict you will be sorely disappointed when/if it does come to be. It will either be run by the likes of Beaver Foods, or a small fast food franchise type affair with prices reflecting the fact it is serving to a captive audience.
My High School (emphasis on “high”) had the usual cafeteria stuff, but also had a short order line where they sold fresh burger, dogs, fries, pizza, and the entire assortment of Hostess snack cakes. Pretty good stuff.
When I was in the Air Force, the cafeteria style food was actually really good. On the flip side, I had to visit an Army base one time, and the stuff they served was the absolute worst crap in the world.
College cafeteria food…I’ve attended half a dozen colleges, but I must say, UCLA cafeteria food has no equal.
One boy in 6th grade mixed his leftover mashed taters, peas, and mystery meat into one big mess trying to gross out everybody. A teacher thought she’d make an example of him and made him eat it, though. Buzz kill.
My elementary school was in Beaver Dam, KY. We were the Beaver Dam Beavers! I shit you not.
We had really standard industrial food the entire time I went to school in Pueblo. The only thing that stands out is the “Snack Bar” at high school. It was just off the cafeteria, and offered convenience store food like nachos, hot dogs, popcorn, etc. More often than not, my friends & I would leave campus at lunch, but we’d have to be sneaky about it, as the school had a “Security Officer” named Rocky. He was just some creepy old dude who always wore avaitor sunglasses & an ugly brown leather jacket, whether it was 34 degrees, or 104. Nobody ever messed with him, though. He looked like he’d been cut a few times, and wouldn’t take any shit. Of course, everyone had a Rocky/narrow escape story, but I never actually saw it happen. Probably all bullshit. I can guarantee, though, I saw him checking out the girls a lot. That’s the creepy part. A 40+ guy checking out high school girls. Oh – and, we had a PA in the cafeteria, that wasn’t tied in with the main school PA. So, every month, a student would be selected to be “DJ” for a month. That was a fun gig. Oddly, I don’t remember anything untoward going out over the lunchroom PA.
Brynhildr & bikerchick – That was half my fun, watching the girls in those most ridculus outfits working out. Who designed those outfits? Must have been some Nun or Reverend Mother.
Ognir, we, too, had “smoking areas” in our high school. Three of them, in fact. And open campus at lunch. You’re right, though – doubt they could do either anymore.
The only cafeteria food I remember was the poor boy sandwiches in high school and pizza day in elementary school. Usually brought my lunch. Back in those days, a pint of milk cost a dime.
Happy Tuesday, Surfers!
@AWG – I think your diet is what’s making things unpleasant. Mix in some cheese.
Un-be-friggin-lievable. How do all you Reporters remember these vivid details from school cafeterias? I am jealous. Or maybe lucky.
I vaguely remember that “pizza day” was something to look forward to. And I ate a whole lot of peanut-butter-and-jelly sammiches out of a brown bag onaccouna it was cheaper than buying the school fare.
My only vivid memory (well, semi-vivid) is that one year I was in charge of buying the doughnuts for high school breakfast. The doughnuts were manufactured at a little shop in downtown Foxboro called, I think, The Donut Shop. I got there early and they would give me a big cardboard container full of doughnuts. I would load the container into my Chevy Nova II and bring them to high school for resale. But not before sampling a honey glazed. Man, there is nothing like a freshly manufactured honey glaze Donut Shop doughnut. I still have visions…
I ate in the cafeteria up until 8th grade, but I don’t remember much about the food. I do remember that the mac & cheese was mushy and disgusting and tasted like vomit. And I remember the soggy squares of “pizza”.
In high school, we had an open lunch, so half the time, I ate at the fast food place on the corner. Can’t tell you how many times I just ate french fries for lunch.