Being Schoole on Lunches

 Being Schooled on Lunches

I decided to make toast and hot chocolate milk like I ate during my elementary school days. I can remember that for thirty-five cents I could get two slices of toast and a mug of cocoa when I arrived at school on those frigid winter mornings. The hot cholate was served with curls of steam rising from the frothy rich chocolate milk. Two slices of hot golden brown toast was slathered in real butter and served on a plate. My tasty recreation was only a pale recreation of the memory, but it has sent me down memory lane to other school lunch favorites.
What made the next meal special wasn’t the macaroni covered in meat sauce, but was the small side salad and the large bun. The bun was tall, warm, and filled with a fresh-baked yeasty flavor. It was served with cold pats of golden butter.
None of these foods stir a connoisseur’s palate, but as a kid certain menus caused me to look ahead with anticipation. A sloppy Joe was one of them. It was just a store-bought burger but filled with a savory ground beef, onions, and a sauce rich with spices. The bun was filled by the “lunch lady” with a scoop just before it was placed on my tray. Napkins and a bib was almost a necessity before sitting down to enjoy this staple.
The next two items that were served on a revolving menu weren’t very fancy but were always favorites with my classmates. The first was grilled cheese and tomato soup. To many it’s no big deal, but with many kids, me included, it was an oasis of hot food that filled our bellies in the middle of the day that were empty or could face a cold sandwich. The hot, greasy sandwich filled with gooey American cheese and the flavorful tomato soup seemed to make the day go much better.
The final food item wasn’t necessarily my favorite, but seemed to impress many of the other students was pizza. It was tasty and filling with its layers of baked dough, tangy tomato sauce, topped with a melted topping of Mozzarella cheese. It definitely a crowd pleaser, but it wasn’t my favorite.
It’s strange as I look back at my food covered selections; I have no impressions of the desserts the cooks shared. I do have a vague memory of cookies or cake but not of their flavors. Isn’t that strange?

By the Light of the Silvery Moon

 By the Light of the Silvery Moon

This was the first line of a song that was sung by Doris Day. My mom Sybil Miner Beck would sometimes sing a line or two as was her habit with any song. I don’t know if I am becoming overly sentimental or whether I am just noticing things more acutely, but the moonlight on the snow seems exceptionally beautiful. The shadows cast by a full moon makes silhouettes of bare tree branches. They somehow appear more hauntingly romantic in the moonlight. The dark specter of limbs on the silver-blue snow is more impressive than the same shadows drawn by the sun.
I like to see the bright moonlight tracing tree branches coated with snow or ice. Snow is given a glow with a bluish sheen and the icy crystals shine with a silver gleam that comes from somewhere deep inside of a clear cold shell.
This is one of the many winter’s scenes that will entice me to stop, take a second look, and possibly a third look happens when the brilliant sheen of the moonlight slides across a pond or lake to create a luminescent pathway. The moon’s rays form a straight road that points its shining fingers back at its creator, the moon.
One specific incident that captured my imagination occurred on a night as I drove along Route 130, near the little town of Unity, Pennsylvania. The moon was exceptionally bright. I was paying only slight attention to the beauty that lay all around me. I was concentrating on the road and the driving conditions when I was assaulted by an inspiring vision. It was so enchanting.
A small barn set back from the edge of the road at one end of a field. It was bathed in pearlescent light of the full moon. It glowed as though it had been formed from silver. Its rough board sides shone even more brightly than the smooth blue snow reflecting the moon’s soft glow that surrounded it. The snow covered roof and cupola were framed by the black velvety sky and the night’s white starred gems. The scene is still firmly lodged in my head, after all of these years. I am trying to share that vision with you, but I feel my words are woefully inadequate to express the awe and beauty that I experienced so many winter nights ago.