Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 27, 1991 TAG: 9103270073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Where were her shamrocks and her lucky chickens? Where was her love?
Rawlings runs the cafeteria at Thaxton Elementary School in Bedford County. There are 180 pupils - kindergartners through sixth-graders - at the school, and nearly four of five of them buy their lunch. Few schools boast as high a rate.
Barbara Rawlings knows them all by name. She has fed them for years. She fed their older brothers and sisters.
Before St. Patrick's Day, all boys and girls who came through the lunch line got a green shamrock for their buttons. This week, randomly selected diners - one from each grade - will have a lucky chicken placed on their lunch tray.
Barbara Rawlings crocheted the green shamrocks and the pastel lucky chickens.
I don't know if the chickens are really lucky. But the kids at Thaxton Elementary sure are.
I endured first grade in 1964. Devoutly, I carried my brown-bagged lunch each day because it was like toting a piece of Mom to those first, endless full-day school sessions.
One day, Mom suggested I buy a 35-cent hot lunch.
Kids who bought lunch at our school always seemed a little bit tougher, more wizened somehow, than the brown bag brigade.
But with the innocence that used to be the birthright of every first-grader, I accepted the challenge.
I would buy.
Now, a quarter of a century later, I can but wonder what sort of person I would have been if I had insisted on peanut butter and jelly on Ritz crackers for an umpteenth consecutive day.
Once in that lunch line, with hungry kids in front of me and hungry kids behind, I got flustered. I forgot a tray. I took two spoons and no forks. I saw no napkins. Sloppy joes steamed in one stainless steel tray; lima beans in another. Somehow, I led the server to believe I would pass on the sloppies. I ended up with only limas. I hate lima beans.
The lady slopping the gruel had, as I recall, one eye stitched shut from a street fight. She had hairy arms and tattoos and was eating sardines while she worked. She growled at me to hurry.
A line of lunch-buying para-professionals grew behind me. They were mad at me, too, for stalling. They smoothly collected silverware, scrutinized the menu and picked what they liked best.
I didn't know that Jell-O and milk were included with the meal, and didn't take any. I had a pat of butter, but no bread.
I was dizzy. I paid my 35 cents and wasn't sure if I was due change or not. The woman running the cash register, who had sideburns, cackled at my small, upturned palm.
It's so long ago, I can't remember if I passed out or not.
But I do remember, clearly, that I did not buy a school lunch for a decade after that. Too much trauma.
Therapy has been ineffective at disarming the hair-trigger emotions the episode still prompts.
What if Barbara Rawlings had been there then? What if, instead of a snarl, I had been greeted with one of her smiles? If she'd asked about my momma?
A lucky chicken on my tray?
I'd be different today. I know it.
by CNB