Those Lunchtime Walkers

12.
Getting me to school during my first two years was a challenge for my mother since, like most Catholic schools, there was no bus service, and my two younger sisters were still at home. My dad’s work in construction had him leaving the house much earlier than I needed to leave and as a result, my grandfather took me pretty often. Coming home, I walked with Joyce, girl in my class and her older sister Janice. They lived down Cortland street and their dad was the area’s milkman. “Walk home with Janice,” was usually the last thing my mother told me as I left in the morning.

Lunchtime was another issue. Lots of Catholic school kids went home for lunch and since my grandparents and Aunt Mary lived two blocks from the school, it would have been a natural place for me to have lunch. The problem was that both my Aunt Mary and grandmother worked during the day - Mary did waitressing and other jobs and of course, Nonni was at the radio station. However, in the basement apartment of my grandparents’ building, my godfather, one Robert (known as “Red”) and his wife Rose lived with their growing family. “Uncle Red” was a school friend of my dad’s, who took his role of godfather very seriously. As a result, Aunt Rose had me for lunch everyday during first grade. She often made me French toast with powdered sugar and syrup.

Leaving each day for lunch, I watched many of the kids grab their bag lunches and head for the tables set up in the center of the basement level of the school. I wanted to desperately to stay for lunch like the other kids, but my mother was not big on any of her kids staying at school at lunch time. I don’t know if it was because I was small and not much of an eater or if she simply wanted me to have the contact with a family member in the middle of the day.

Finally, I convinced her to let me try it once. On that momentous day, I could hardly keep still during the morning, waiting for lunchtime. Of course, Mom made me an enormous lunch and I excitedly took my place with the rest of my classmates at the big table in the lunchroom. I was now one of the lunchtime kids - no longer a lunchtime walker.

I watched as the older kids sat down and took their lunches out of their paper sacks or lunch boxes. I also had a lunch box - I think it was a gift because my mother knew I certainly didn’t need one. It was all pink, with a pink thermos bottle inside. Mom had put hot chocolate in the thermos and made me a healthy-sized ham sandwich, cookies and some fruit. It was much more than I would usually eat at home or at aunt Rose's.

I was so thrilled to be eating at school, especially with all the big kids from the upper grades that I really didn’t have much of an appetite. Still, I knew I would have to bring home anything I didn’t eat and if I didn’t do a good job on my lunch, I wouldn’t be able to stay again. The nuns also did their little sermon to all the kids at the lunch table about the sin of wasting food and to think of all the poor children in China who never had enough to eat. I continued to eat, forcing myself to finish the sandwich I never felt like even tasting.

The result was inevitable. I tried so hard to keep it down, but before the end of the lunch period, I threw up all over myself and the table, much to the disgust of the bigger kids around me. Lunchtable panic ensued.

“Oh no!”

“Yuck!”

“Move over!”

“Oh that stinks!”

Kids were falling over themselves in an effort to get as far away from me as possible. In tears, I turned to look for the nun on duty who did her best to restore order. She extricated me from the bench at the table and turned me over to an older girl, instructing her to get me cleaned up in the girls’ bathroom.

I followed her upstairs and she took me over to the sink. I was just seven and she could not have been much more than ten. But she ran the warm water, dipped in a few brown paper towels and gently wiped off my face and uniform. I was still crying but her gentleness calmed me down, telling me it was ok, asking if I felt better. Of course, my stomach was completely settled now, having lost the entire lunch, but my crying persisted, knowing that once my mother found out what happened, I’d never be able to eat lunch at school again.

Which is exactly what happened.