I love sharing things we had in High School when I went that children aren’t able to experience today. Back them most of my friends had cars and we were able to leave for campus for lunch.
As I watch movies like Ferris Bueller and Grease I see some things about going back to school that take you right back to being a kid. For me, one of those things is lunch.
Not the school cafeteria. Not the lunch trays. Not the little cartons of milk. I’m talking about the days when, if you were in high school, you could actually leave school for lunch. Yes, really without a parents permission.
back then most kids would leave school to go to work or grab something to eat. You were trusted to leave, take care of your business, and get yourself back to school. Of course, that last part didn’t always work out exactly as planned.
I remember having several places around town where I could go but I had to stay close because I had to walk I wasn’t one of the lucky ones who had a car and could leave if they wanted to. Unless one of my friends would ask me to go with them which didn’t happen that much.
But that was okay because across the street from my High School was a Dairy Queen on one corner, and I loved going there for their onion rings. hen there was Taco Inn. And Taco Inn wasn’t just some restaurant to us.
Taco Inn was Bear and Susie’s. Everybody knew Bear and Susie. And I mean everybody. I even had an account there. If I didn’t have money for lunch, I could charge my food. Think about that. Not every child had a account but I did.
Back in the day a kid could walk into a local restaurant, order lunch, and if they didn’t have the money that day, and Bear and Susie knew them well enough they might let them put it on their account.
That tells you something about the kind of community we lived in. People knew the kids. They might not have knew the parents and that was okay because back then adults took care of everyone’s children as if they were there own child.
And those tacos? Nobody has ever made tacos that taste like theirs. I’ve eaten tacos plenty of places over the years, but there is something about Taco Inn tacos that I have never been able to find anywhere else.
Maybe it was the recipe. Maybe it was Bear and Susie. Maybe it was simply that I was young and those tacos were part of my childhood. Mabey it was 2 people who weren’t part of my family and never had a problem feeding me no, matter the time of day.
Whatever the reason, when I think about high school lunches, I can still taste them. Today, Taco Inn is gone. Where it once stood is now a car lot. The Dairy Queen is gone too. Where we used to go for those onion rings is now a pawn shop. And that’s one of the strangest parts of getting older.
You can drive past a place that looks completely different now, but in your mind, you can still see exactly what used to be there. You can see the restaurant. You can see your friends. You can remember what you ordered. You can remember who you were with. And suddenly, you’re back there again.
Most of the kids also went to Lottaburger. And I had never even heard of Lottaburger! Not Whataburger. But we did have a Whatburger as well close enough to leave and have lunch at as well as Griff’s and even Clown Burger and we can’t forget Pancho’s.
There was also a Sonic we could go to. And down at Richland Plaza, there was Kentucky Fried Chicken. Which brings me to one of my favorite school memories—and one that didn’t exactly go according to plan.
One day, my friend Susan and I decided we were going to leave school and go have lunch at Kentucky Fried Chicken. We thought we could make it back. We had it all figured out. Or at least we thought we did.
We ate our lunch, and then we realized that maybe we hadn’t calculated our time quite as well as we thought. Boy, oh boy. We didn’t make it back to school on time. We were late. And when you’re a kid, being late is one thing. Being late because you left school to go eat lunch is something else entirely.
I had to call my mom. Then my mom had to call in for both of us. And Susan? She got busted and grounded. I’m sure neither of us thought it was very funny at the time. But now? It’s one of those stories that makes me smile. Because those are the kinds of things you remember.
Not necessarily the algebra lesson. Not the worksheet. Not what page the teacher told you to read. You remember the day you and your friend thought you had plenty of time to eat fried chicken and discovered that you really didn’t.
You remember getting caught. You remember having to call your mother. And decades later, you still remember Susan. Who I’m lucky enough to still be in contact with and able to talk to through Facebook.
There were other places around town that were part of our lives too. Which brings back another memory for me because it was also where Mike’s Snow Cone Stand used to be. My daughter and I loved going there.
Isn’t it funny how one place can hold so many different chapters of your life? You can remember being a teenager in one place and then, years later, bringing your own child there.
The businesses change. The buildings change. The people grow up. But the memories stay. And that’s what makes this back-to-school season make me think about the way we remember school. Because kids today don’t get to do what we did.
They don’t usually get to walk out of the school building at lunchtime, decide where they’re going to eat, meet up with their friends, and then figure out how to get back before the bell rings.
There are very good reasons schools are different today. Parents worry about safety. Schools have responsibilities they didn’t have in the same way when I was growing up. The world has changed. But sometimes I still miss that little piece of freedom.
I miss the trust. I miss the independence. I miss walking into a local restaurant and having the people behind the counter know who you were. I miss the little businesses that were part of our everyday lives.
I miss Bear and Susie. I miss Taco Inn. I miss those Dairy Queen onion rings. I miss Sonic. I remember Kentucky Fried Chicken at Richland Plaza. And I remember Susan and me thinking we could make it back to school in time. We couldn’t. But somehow, that made the memory even better.
My son Charlie and Suzzane never really had the opportunity to experience school that way. When he was in public school but then when we began to homeschool not only him but Charlie, they had a completely different kind of freedom.
But they didn’t have the experience of being a teenager in a traditional high school, walking out with there friends at lunchtime and deciding where they were going to eat. And that’s okay.
Every generation gets its own version of childhood. Suzzane and Charlie has memories that I never had. Today’s kids will have memories that Charlie never had. But when I think about the childhood I remember, I realize that what I miss isn’t necessarily every single thing about the past.
It’s the feeling. The feeling that we were trusted to go. We were trusted to come back. We were trusted to figure things out. Sometimes we made good decisions. Sometimes we didn’t. Sometimes we made it back to school. And sometimes, like Susan and me, we didn’t. And then we had to call my mom because Susan only had a dad who worked atr Rexall Drugs and couldn’t take a phone call.
But we learned. We grew. And we made memories. Maybe that’s what I miss most about the good old days. We didn’t have to plan to make memories. We weren’t taking pictures of everything. We weren’t posting our lunch on social media.
We didn’t have a phone tracking our every move. We simply went to lunch. And somehow, going to lunch became a story we would remember for the rest of our lives. Which is one of the coolest parts of my childhood.
What About You? Could you leave school for lunch when you were growing up? Where did you and your friends go? Was there a restaurant where everybody knew you? Did you have a Bear and Susie in your life? And did you ever get caught because you didn’t make it back to school on time?
I’d love to hear your story. Because sometimes the best memories of school weren’t made sitting behind a desk. Sometimes they were made when we walked out the school doors. Which was the funniest part of the day.
Sometimes, they were made over a plate of tacos, a basket of onion rings, or a bucket of fried chicken. Those are the memories I miss. The good old days. The days when we didn’t know we were making memories. We were just going to lunch.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates