School Lunches

What's for Lunch?
Butch Ford Class of 60: Lunchtime was really something for school kids in Forrest City. From elementary school through high school. Our food and the facilities in which we "dined" ran the gamut... As I sit here thinking of all the different places and people, my mind whirls. Mrs. Turley's cafeteria in the old Elementary School (peanut butter balls come to mind); the "awful-teria" under the stadium behind the high school (spider webs come to mind). How happy we were when we moved into the new Junior High and when they finally finished the cafeteria/gym/big hall and we could eat in a real cafeteria...uh oh, new facility, same food... One thing ALL the cafeterias had, other than the little boxes of milk, that was those great rolls. Still the best rolls I've ever had. I think cafeteria managers all over the country must share the same secret roll recipe. They were the same at the school where I taught in Memphis.

I always did like to have a class on the second floor, east side of the high school in the period before lunch to watch the sprints across the campus to see who could get to Campbell's grocery first. And then, the bell rings and it's the Oklahoma Land Rush and a buffalo stampede at the same time. What was the hurry" Ten cent lunch meat sammiches, fifteen cent hamburgers? Nah. Some kids always ate at Boone's, some at Campbell's and others at, what was the other one? Then Donny Kessinger's relatives opened an actual burger stand on the corner. The crowds in those stores were panic-inducing while the herds crowded up to the trough to get their swill. And then, there was Bell's Cafe.

A short walk from campus to the that little paradise of the perfect hamburger owned by Bell Butler-May-Butler-May on Washington next to Winfield's Drug Store (which wasn't mentioned in the drug store section). The request for extra onion resulted in half-inch thick slices of onion piled on top of a big, juicy hamburger pattie, buns grilled to crispy edges, mustard slathered on both sides. Oh, man, that memory makes hungry. Only a few of us made that walk every day. None of us had a car, except Immel and he always had a girl with him. The joint would be full of old guys and Bell, the Queen of the Hamburger. We made nuisances of ourselves more than a few times. You guys remember the note Bell wrote to us on the bathroom wall?

Anonymous said...Did the sign in the bathroom say PLAY NICE?

Butch said...PLAY NICE was definitely NOT what she wrote on the wall. I'll have to admit that we had trashed her bathroom, which had an outside entrance, several days in a row. We thought our little tricks were hilarious. We would laugh all the way back to school. If I remember correctly, the guilty parties were Butch Ford (me), Mike Deaderick, Doug Smith, Billy Lieblong, Danny Harrelson, maybe Phil Hicky and maybe Freddie Swan. In fairness, not sure about the last two, but they did eat at Bell's pretty often. Some of the girls started going their during the senior year. Patricia Sulcer, Sheila Sweet, Mimi Butler, Gay Burke, Paula Light, Betty Jo Buford, Pam Daniels, Ann Runyan were always running around together...not sure of the exact group. That was a long time ago. Oh. The girls had nothing to do with the bathroom incident.

Janet Class of '62: Why couldn't girls eat lunch at Aldridge's store? I remember that was just understood but I never knew why. Most of us ate our lunch in the gym because the high school did not have a cafeteria that I can remember. We would go to Burrows' Grocery, the Korner Kreme (Kessinger) or to Boones. If you were lucky someone would bring you a hamburger from I also remember being allowed in the 6th grade to go to Boone's store and buy lunch and walk back to the elementary school. Seems impossible today.

Sula Class of '68: I think the last time I ate in the school cafeteria was in Jr. High. We had big thick round glasses & you went to a milk machine to fill them. I remember Tim Mize always age with a napkin over his milk glass. I asked him why & he said to keep things from falling in it. In 10th grade my boyfriend had wheels & we went to Faupel's almost every day. I gained 20 lbs the year I dated him! My favorite was fried ham sandwich...and frito pies (not all at once) :)

Anonymous said...I always loved cho cho's. does anyone remember chocolate ice cream bars being called cho cho's? I said that to my niece one day and she did not have a clue what I was talking about! I loved the rolls and cho cho's in the cafeteria. The rest of the time I ate at Faupels or the Corral.

Admin said...oops sorry BJ. Thanks for pix...We replaced Sealtest with Borden's milk-- BJ's dad, Buddy Rowland was a Borden's distributor & helped all of us grow strong bones!