A Little Bit Like Home

Bread and Butter

The start of a school year has a way of sharpening old memories. I do not remember every first day of school, but I remember the first day school changed sizes. At North Nodaway, kindergarten through fourth grade attended school in Pickering. Fifth grade through seniors were in the larger building at Hopkins. On paper, that made sense. To a fourth grader, it felt less like moving to another building and more like being forced to another country.

Pickering was familiar. Most of the day was spent in the same classroom with the same teacher, except for P.E., music, art, and trips to the library. Lunch was served in the gymnasium. The “lunchroom” was the old stage at one end, and each class carried trays down the steps to tables set up on the gym floor by Bill Linebaugh, the school custodian. The meals were good, and there was always the gentle encouragement to “try it and see if you care for it.”

One of my favorite parts of lunch was simple: bread and butter, usually sliced diagonally into triangles. For reasons I cannot fully explain, I preferred the heel. Most kids did not. That worked to my advantage. “Could I have the heel, please?” One, I liked it. Two, very few others did. By second grade, I usually did not have to ask. The cooks knew, and even Bill knew. Someone would spot the heel and place it on my tray like it had been saved for that very purpose. Maybe it had.

Then came fifth grade. Fifth grade meant Hopkins, and Hopkins meant lockers, bells, multiple teachers, and hallways where fifth graders crossed paths with high school students who seemed large enough to have jobs and car payments. The bell changed everything. Each subject had its own room. When it rang, you were expected to leave one room, go to your locker, exchange books, and make it to the next class before the hallway swallowed you whole.

The locker may have been the most intimidating part. I had practiced the combination. I knew the numbers. But there is a difference between opening a locker in calm preparation and opening one while older students move around you and the bell seems to be judging. By mid morning on that first day, I had one goal: make it to lunch.

Lunch at Hopkins was not like lunch at Pickering. The line wound around the corner and into the hallway. Other grades were eating at the same time because the schedule was ruled by that bell. Students picked up trays and moved down the line, and for a fifth grader still learning the system, even lunch felt bigger. Then I saw it. In the lunch line was a tub of bread and butter sandwiches. In that tub was a heel piece.

For a moment, the old routine rose up in me. I could ask for it. I had asked many times before. But this was not Pickering. This was Hopkins. This was not the time for a fifth grader to draw attention to himself by making a special bread request. So I kept quiet. When I reached that part of the line, one of the lunch ladies looked at me, reached into the tub, picked up the heel piece, and placed it on my tray. I must have looked surprised. When I raised my eyes to thank her, she gave me a wink and said she had heard I liked the heel.

I do not remember everything else that happened that day. I do not remember whether my locker opened on the first try after lunch. I do not remember what homework I carried home. But I remember the wink. Somebody knew. Somebody remembered. Because of that, a nervous fifth grader felt a little less alone. Kindness does not always announce itself as kindness. Sometimes it looks like bread and butter, sliced diagonally, with the heel saved for the kid who likes it. I still like the heel, and I still remember the day one lunch lady helped make a bigger school feel a little more like home.

Tom Brand is a St. Joseph, Missouri, writer whose latest book, “You Have To Leave If You Want To Come Back,” is available at RichardsonPress.com. He believes a good school lunch can do more than fill a tray.