On campus

Danette Goulet

COSTA MESA -- It began as a low and distant rumbling, growing louder as

they neared, until they surrounded me.

It was 11:45 a.m.: lunchtime for first-graders at Kaiser Primary Center.

Within moments, a line snaked around the corner and out the doors of the

multipurpose room into the gray morning. Students waited -- more

patiently than I ever did as a child -- to pick up a plastic foam tray of

various odd-shaped sections that hold the lunch de jour.

A smiling woman wearing a black hairnet and blue apron continuously

placed plastic bags containing two tiny cheeseburgers on trays, pushing

them forward as little hands swept them up.

My line mates informed me that salads were also available, but that I

should eat the burgers. Far be it from me to argue. Burgers it was.

I had, it seems, missed the best day, Friday -- pizza day, they said.

Funny, but Friday was pizza day when I was in elementary school, too.

As the line curved, we picked up a packet with a straw, napkin and

plastic knife, fork and spoon.

Having reverted to childhood, I snatched a chocolate milk before I felt

someone patting me on the hip. The little girl behind me held up a

strawberry milk. Tempting, but I stuck with the chocolate for old time’s

sake.

Next was a tray piled with little plastic cups of shredded lettuce -- I

figured out hours later that it must have been for my burger. Then came

bags of carrots and, last, a frozen orange juice bar.

The kids took what they wanted and left the rest.

Because it was cold and gloomy and looked like rain, we had to eat

inside. Eating outside is much better, said Isaiah Glenn, who sat next to

me.

“Because you can get straight to playing,” explained the 7-year-old.

“From in here you have to go outside and then cross the black top, which

you’re not supposed to run on.”

And so we ate inside.

Across the table, I watched Chandler Fergus, 7, pull munchies out of her

lunch box and eat them one at a time: cottage cheese with fruit, turkey

lunchmeat-wrapped carrot sticks on toothpicks, two cookies carefully

enclosed in plastic wrap and a small red apple.

All the students who brought their meals had lunch boxes, but they

weren’t like I remembered them. Kids no longer carry the metal lunch

boxes that can be accidentally whacked on the bus door and seats without

harming the contents. Now they all carry soft, insulated fabric packs

with zippers.

A few seats down, Lauren Terry, 6, unzipped her lunch pack and began

assembling prepackaged pizzas, getting more cheese on the table than on

the muffin.

“Look, look,” she said, as she bit the center out of a piece of pepperoni

and stuck her tongue through it.

Maybe things haven’t changed that much -- new lunch boxes, same old fun.

Above the din of children’s voices we began to hear sporadic popping

sounds. Isaiah jumped.

“Oooh, they’re gonna get a pink slip,” he said.

After a few more pops a shrill whistle sounded and they all stopped in

their tracks.

“Do not pop these bags,” shouted noon monitor Eileen Shafer, holding up

one of the bags that held the plastic utensils.

In less than a minute, the chatter rose again to its previous pitch.

After Chandler polished off her apple, she zipped up her bag and raised

her hand. With a nod and a wave from another noon monitor, Mr. Gale, the

young girl trotted out to recess.

When I asked what that was all about, Isaiah informed me that when you

are ready to leave you have to raise your hand and wait to be excused.

After licking my frozen juice stick clean, I tossed it in the garbage and

raised my hand.

FYI

* Who: First-grade students

* Where: Kaiser Primary Center

* What: Lunch

* Meal: Two tiny cheeseburgers, carrots, milk and an orange juice frozen

bar.