TheBanyanTree: high school fun

[paul]

This started as a little reply to a few folks off-list.... well, a few hours
and a couple of beers later and then I'm told this should go to the Tree.  You
have been warned....  Don der dreckware und hightopen boots.

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> I know yer all busy peoples out there, but does anybody make> mac-and-cheese
from scratch these days?

This is madness to you all I know, but I don't like mac n' cheese,  scratch,
Kraft or otherwise.

I think I ate too much of it as a child.  We were pretty poor for many years,
and with six mouths to feed, it was on the menu a LOT.  So was sauerkraut and
hotdogs, and I can't do them any more either.  Taters au rotten as well.

Pass me the peanut butter!

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Heh, we didn't have the hotdogs, just potatoes and sauerkraut, sometimes with
hamburger, sometimes with bony ribs, sometimes with beans.

Hey, that stuff Alice makes?  That y'all made here?  That I wasn't too
interested in eating? (it was good once I tried it though)  We had stuff like
that a lot.... heck, we called it "stuff" and they could make it stretch for a
week by adding more "stuff".  Especially towards the end of the month.  Blech.

But we had plenty of milk and eggs because we had goats and chickens.
Milkshakes and a pile of vitamin pills on the side for breakfast....  Blender
of milk, a few eggs, couple spoons of sugar and some flavoring.  Carob is
still weird, I don't care what ya say, it ain't chocolate.  Getting a quart
jar of goat milk outta the fridge, drinking half of it (without shaking the
jar first), well....  it was worth a smack upside the head from mom, what was
left was still better than what the cow gave.  :)

It wasn't "nothing to eat but sauerkraut and beans".... even tho it seems so.
It was very little "processed foods" like tater chips and weenies or pre-made
stuff like TV dinners.  Tho I remember helping my mom fill a cart a couple of
times when the Banquet or Swanson pot pies went on sale for a dime each...
Chicken, Beef, Turkey.  $10 was a lot of pot pies for the deep freezer.  Too
bad every one of those 100 pies were loaded with peas and carrots.  Heh, I'm
just not a veggie person, ok?

And I know my folks can't make sauerkraut.  It didn't sauer or kraut.... just
sorta fermented with jars blowing up, but too icky to even try to drink.  :)
Homemade rootbeer?  My first drunk.  Lordy, we were all wasted.  No one
thought that one bottle would be like 4 beers until we had each had 3 bottles.
Heh, I still like rootbeer.... don't think I would store the bottles for aging
in the chicken coop tho...  then again...

Mac & cheese?  Never at home.  Sometimes for lunch at school.   In highschool,
of 650 kids, maybe 100 didn't qualify for free lunch.  So they dropped the
price to 25¢ if you bought a monthly lunch card, else you paid 30¢ cash.  The
school district had oil money.  Your only choice in the serving line was
chocolate or white milk.  Extra milk was a nickel a carton, pay the lady that
punches your card at the end of the line.  No pizza, ever.  Hamburgers once in
a while and with a bag of Fritos!!  The rest was a lot of stick to your ribs
stuff like enchiladas, tacos, burritos, and my fav: chalupas.  With sides like
refried beans, mashed taters, spanish rice (and if they liked you they'd give
you a boiled in rice chickn neck too)(ick, but I could trade it for prunes or
a chalupa), and various kinds of canned veggies.  You could get seconds after
everyone got firsts, /if/ you ate most of what was on your plate... not eating
your lima beans or prunes was ok... eating just the fruit cocktail was not
ok.... and by golly you were supposed to eat your food!   Man, those old women
would jump all over you for not eating.  In Spanish.  Like it was an insult to
grandma's cooking.

Yeah, it was, they could cook.  Oh, my, they could cook!  Sometimes they would
be talking in Spanish at you and then just grab you and give ya a hug.  Never
could get a translation from anyone because they would all be laughing their
asses off.

Beat the tar outta peanut butter sandwiches on homemade bread.  :)



Funny how most of what I remember from HS is lunch, the library, and a few
teachers and friends.  Along with the wasted 4 hours a day on the school bus,
what the hell was I doing from 8 am to 4 pm for 3 years?   <shrug>  I don't
recall having any really tough classes after 9th grade in Mobile.... after
moving to Texas....   I don't feel too ignorant, but what do I know.  Right?

A few things I remember from HS:

  Hanging out in the library, drinking tea with the Librarian.  She bought me
a cup for my b'day... instead of using a stryofoam cup.  It has bananas on
it... it sorta cracked after a couple of years of use, so I use it in the
bathroom for toothbrushes.  Have since I got my first apt in '79.  Miss
Wasserman got married over the summer.  We got a new librarian my sr year... I
sorta trained him and he sorta trained me.  Mr. Fang (say Fong) was a trip...
probably the only person in a hundred miles that spoke Mandarin.  Lord, get
him pissed off and you could hear Chinese in LaJoya!

  Being pulled out of class many times by the Principal to un-jam the school
district's only Xerox machine.  A big 720-II model as I recall.  It was an
awesome machine.  Seeing the Xerox guy have a f***ing hissy fit and going to
the office to raise hell was cool.  Because I had Xerox guts all over the
place... drum carefully placed on top of the machine, roller and corona wire
assemblies all around on the floor, when he FINALLY showed up after THREE
WEEKS of daily calls.  I know, _I_ was calling everyday.  No worry, I put it
back together.  He did whatever and the next day I had Xerox guts all over the
floor again.   What the heck, got me outta math class, right?

[One thing about the school... the office and the library were across the hall
from each other, with glass walls, and then there was the lunchroom/locker
room/whatever.  It was all open view except the principal had vertical blinds
on his glass.  Well, yeah, would you want everyone to know you were in trouble
and getting licks?]

  Being pulled out of class to run the library when the librarian was sick.
That was jr and sr years.  Wow, what an adult thing to be treated to.  Still
had to do my homework tho... sure...  me the kid always getting yelled at for
being 5 chapters ahead of everyone...  and I didn't get paid... beat hell
outta looking at the witch I had for English IV and V for 2 hours a day for a
couple of weeks.  And Yeah!  I didn't have to go to History class... taught by
a moron football coach badly needing remedial reading classes.

  Drama class was one of those things you take just to kill time.  Yeah,
exciting stuff,  like the Chess Club or the Math Club.  Then you get wrapped
up in doing one act plays and going to Austin for the state completion.
  Art.  Probably entirely too much fun.  Heck, Art was just an excellent bull
session.  I have the picture to prove it.
  Shop.  I sorta learned how to arc-weld and make a BBQ from an old water
heater.... I can oxy-acetylene weld just fine.

Funny, the classes where you are not preached at were the most fun.  I learned
stuff like stage lighting and how bad I can draw.


Anyway.

Class of '76 RULES!


  :)