Chicken Day at High School

Chicken Day at Airline High! It was the stuff of legend. Well not a really long legend. When I was at Airline, we always liked the rolls, and the chicken was good, but not the stuff of legend. The stuff of legend was hoping that maybe our football team would at least win one game that year. Or wondering if David Toms would become a pro golfer and maybe earn enough to buy a really cool car.

But, back in the present, my sons would come home every week, telling tales of how they got a well placed classroom before lunch shift, so they could vault out the door on Chicken Day and beat all the other kids to the front of the line. How, when the bell would sound, it was a melee of young men, elbowing, punching, and shoving their way to the front for Momma’s delicious chicken.

How when it looked like a possibility of not getting near enough to the front of the line, a well placed foot could cause a pile of backpacks and bodies and clear the way for young men desperate for Mommas’s chicken. Sitting at Ring Ding and graduation, students bequeathed Chicken Day to their lower-classmen and gave bittersweet sighs that no university cafeteria would ever compare.

Now although I never heard the terrific chicken tales at Cope Middle, I did hear tales of great pizza and fluffy, soft rolls. It was always a relief to be able to quit packing the lunch every day. Sixth grade meant no more lunchboxes. No more deciding ham or turkey. Ham or turkey? No more deciding chips or brownie. Doritos or donuts? No more pulling out celery sticks that had grown mold. Once in Cope’s doors, virtually all the cool kids bought their lunches and had different hot meals every day.

Then the state stepped in. And as government is so good at doing, it messed everything up.
First they attacked my candy sales last year. Dictating that certain candies were off limits, because candy should be nutritious. Nutritious candy? I watched the nature bars and whole wheat cookies gather dust.

Then after about 3 days this year my daughter comes home and instructed me to start packing the lunch. My son came home and said the battle for the front of the lunch line was history. Poor Momma had her hands tied even more by the higher ups with good intentions.

Being the concerned, and nosey, mother that I am, I checked it out. Can’t fry too many things anymore, that’s not good for you. I asked why some people take oil supplements for heart health? That doesn’t matter, things need to be baked.

Can’t have certain items more than so many times a week. I wondered if whoever drew up the menus had ever raised a child that ate nothing but pizza and Hawaiian Punch for ten years. And he grew up pretty darn tall and healthy.

Can’t have certain items on the menu and certain spices are banned from the cupboard. Kids could have allergies. I asked why other things were left on the menu. Some of the approved items, I am allergic to myself. But I was told that the state was selective in its allergies. Certain allergies have government approval, other allergies are ignored. It’s sort of like a class system.
The state would prefer that our children get used to fresh fruit like oranges. My mom is allergic to oranges. That wouldn’t be good for her. Well, then apples and pears should do.

One of the concessions mom’s children is allergic to apples and pears, better take those off the menu. I also have a friend who’s child can’t eat protein. Better take that off the menu. And also take off any dairy products, gluten products, peanut products, things with fat grams, things with carbohydrates, things with salt, things with oil, and basically anything else that may possibly be edible.

Poor Momma is banished to the island of Lost Great Chefs with her spice bottle confiscated and her deep fry on Ebay. She is destined to be listed in the history books of Great People of Airline’s Past.

And now rather than a variety of hot lunches for thousands of hungry children, some of them possibly their only meal, its back to those early morning choices. Ham or turkey? Ham or turkey? Brownie or chips? Brownie or chips?
Sounds really nutritious to me.