School lunches and dodging dinosaurs

Yesterday I caught the last bit of a story on the news about some group wanting to take vending machines and junk food out of public schools. Sounds okay to me and it sounds like the plan could save parents some serious change as well.

You see back when I went to school, during the days when we had to dodge the dinosaurs on our way to and from school, there were no vending machines, save maybe one Coke machine for the teachers. We either ate the cafeteria food or brought our lunch from home. You could buy a carton of milk or drink water at the water fountain.

You bought a lunch ticket at the beginning of the week, if you planned to eat the school lunch. The lunch lady would punch your ticket for each meal they served you. It was all so plain and simple. No choices of foods, you got whatever was on the daily menu. Plus it was considered affordable most of the time, even to my parents.

There was another plus to the plain and simple routine. I learned to eat just about anything they put on my plate. It was either that or go hungry until you got home.

I remember loving Fridays because that was the day we had fish out of respect for the Catholic kids who had to eat fish on Friday, or something like that. You could smell the fish cooking about mid morning and it smelled so wonderfully good. Same with the days the lunchroom ladies would bake peanut butter cookies. My mouth waters now just thinking of those aromas.

Yeah, I know, I’m sounding like an old crab, but seems to me if they remove the snack crap out of the schools, the kids would be healthier and their parents would save some bucks to boot. Plus, this problem with so many obese kids might change. The fastest way for a kid to lose weight, other than running and dodging dinosaurs on their way to and from school, is to stop eating junk food.