Newly Broken

Full disclosure: This is NOT a political rant. I promise. 

I am a product of Virginia’s public schools from primary school to my not-really-enough college. All were state-supported public institutions. Our children fall mostly into that same category, with the exception of some post-grad work our son is doing in Mississippi. 

Sharon and I are both supporters of and believers in public education. 

I started school in Flint Hill, Rappahannock County, Virginia, before the Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. School Board in 1954. I’ve talked about how that affected schools in Virginia. Today’s vignette is about going to a white elementary school in a poor rural county. The Colored schools, called Graded schools, were no better and in most cases were not as good. 

Flint Hill Elementary School — primary school — was within walking distance for kids living in the village. The more rural kids rode school buses. A few parents dropped off their children, but it was more a matter of convenience for the parent than for the student. The drop-off place was at the bottom of a steep gravel driveway as the front of the school building was for buses only. 

Several of the county’s white schools had a lunchroom or cafeteria, and Flint Hill Elementary was one of them. However, at the start of the school year, the lunchroom was being cleaned and stocked so wouldn’t being serving hot lunches until the second week. Everyone who could, brought their lunch. I had my brand-damn-new Roy Rogers lunchbox and Thermos bottle containing a half peanut butter and jelly sandwich — folded not cut — homemade cookie and cold milk. 

“The Thermos is breakable. Be careful with it.”

Uh huh.

Lunchtime came. We stowed whatever educational-ish materials spread out a paper towel and set to our brought-from-home lunches. I poured a measure of cold milk from the Thermos into the included plastic cup and was shocked to find bits of broken glass. The glass interior of my Roy Rogers Thermos bottle was broken and I was devastated. I couldn’t even eat my PB&J or cookies. 

That broken bottle during the first week of school was the beginning of a curse that followed me for the first seven years of school. Whine for the Roy Rogers/Kit Carson/Davey Crockett/whoever-the-TV-hero-of-the-moment-was until my mom couldn’t stand it and bought the damn thing. Then during that crucial first week of school, no matter how careful I thought I was being, I broke the Thermos. A couple years I made it until Friday and at least once I broke it before leaving home to walk to school. No Thermos bottle belonging to me ever survived the first week of primary school. 

There were obviously kids in more dire situations than I. Like the kid who ate grasshoppers because he was hungry (from Charles at Six in Stories from Potomac County) or the boy who brought bread sandwiches: two slices of bread with a slice of bread between them. I don’t remember any lard sandwiches, but I know there were some of those in brought-from-home lunches. There were no options for free or reduced-price lunches after the lunchroom began serving during week two of the school year. In Rappahannock County Virginia in the 1950s, it was root-hog-or-die. 

Come back next time. Bring coffee but don’t carry it in a glass-lined Thermos. I’ll make us a couple of PB&Js.