School Lunches,Wax paper and Tin Foil

I was thinking about school lunches. At first we used to take our lunch to school with us. Mom would carefully pack us a good lunch every morning. It would be placed in our lunch buckets or pails as Dad was fond of calling them. I called it a lunch box. My favorite one was a red barn. It had the traditional thermos that fit into the top lid and held in place by that wire. It had a glass liner. Replacement liners could be purchased but when that one got broken that was it ! No more thermos. The end result was usually you got a new lunch box. The barn one was made of metal. Later they were made of cardboard covered with plastic. I vaguely remember having one like that but don' recall the theme. The painted metal ones were the best kind and I wonder how much lead was in that paint.
Now this was before baggies. Yup they hadn't come up with that concept yet. All sandwiches were wrapped in waxed paper. Cut Rite was the brand and still is to this day. My Mom wrapped those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like Christmas gifts. The ends carefully folded to points. Rarely would she use tin foil, that stuff was expensive. Actually prior to Aluminum foil there was tin foil. Made of a combination of Tin and (omg) Lead is was a bit stiffer than what we are used to and left a tinny taste on the food. That's why we old folks still call it tin foil though. The thermos may contain a variety of things. Soup being a mainstay. When they introduced the wide mouth version that changed everything ! We would sometimes get potato chips as well but they were wrapped in wax paper because they didn't make snack size bags back then. No such thing as juice packs either. We always bought those little cartons of milk (3cents) from the cafeteria. White or Chocolate. That was the choices. Back then no one was concerned with Lactose Intolerance,deal with it !
By the time I reached the fifth grade I was way too old for lunch boxes. Time to buy your lunch from the cafeteria. I remember standing in that line and fumbling in my pockets for the change. School lunch was less than a buck so change was all that was necessary. The Grand kids have an account at the school so they don't need to bring any money unless they want ice cream. If their account goes empty the school will provide them with a lunch, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich ! How ironic just like Mom used to make. I think it is a form of punishment for allowing your account to get empty.
I don't remember much of the menu but a few items are stuck in my memory. Welsh Rare Bit being the foremost. I called it Welsh Rabbit and liked it very much. You could get it either on saltine crackers or toast. The toast was cold so I always went for the crackers. At least the crackers were supposed to be hard,crunchy and cold. Barbecue beef on a Bun. Pre Sloppy Joes' but the same thing. We always had a salad. The food was served on a tray like a TV dinner. Same compartments. The salad was in the center and flanked by the desert and a vegetable. I can remember drinking the carton of milk real fast and then stuffing that salad into the container. If you didn't the teacher would make you eat that salad ! I think we had spaghetti too but wouldn't swear to it. We could purchase ice cream in those dixie cups. Dixie cups were cardboard then and came with a little wooden spoon. Don't know if they still do that.
When we went to Jr High and High School we were allowed to leave the property for lunch. The majority of us would head downtown for fries and a coke. The kids that had more money would get cheeseburgers and milkshakes. There were several places that catered to the noontime crowd and would have those fries ready and waiting. The different cliques went to different places. This was shortly after the Malt Shop era but the shops were still there. They just changed with the times. Lunch time at the High School was the best ! Seldom was anyone late getting back. Now they are in lock down. You need an ID on a string just to enter the place. Times change and so does lunch. I kinda miss the waxed paper.