School Lunches

As schools across the country swing back into gear without me, the Chicago Tribune Magazine's Flashback page by Nancy Watkins had the words "Hunger makes children ill-natured and unhappy," spoken by a Chicago teacher in 1931.

Under it was a picture of the kitchen of Austin High School at 231 Pine with seven ladies busily preparing the day's meal back in 1938.

The article says lots of laws, regulations, and money have been poured into the school lunch program across the United States. The NATIONAL SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM was started in 1946. Menus are supposedly carefully planned to provide nutrition. Unfortunately, if it is not hamburgers, pizza, or fries, a goodly portion is thrown away.

### Cost of a lunch of butter bean soup, milk, raspberries and two slices of bread at Chicago's Dante School in 1930: 5 cents. (I might just throw this away myself.)

### Cost of seconds of any item: 1 cent. (You have to be kidding me.)

### Percentage of Chicago public school kids eligible for free lunch: 80.


The earliest school lunches I remember were 25 cents. When I retired from teaching in 2006, it was $2.

I can remember lots of tater tots. What we wouldn't have given for french fries. Today, it I have a choice, it's tots all the way.

Then there was the time we had ketchuo, or is that catsup? listed as a vegetable. That is sure pushing it. The kids at Magee had fries with their ketchup.

I remember thinking how fine it was to get the opportunity to buy a milkshake when I started high school at Fremd in Palatine, Illinois, back in 1965.

I Thought the Lunches Were Pretty Good. --Old Coot