LUNCHBOX LESSONS

Have you seen those hilarious TV commercials for Subway sandwiches that depicts workers in an office sitting down to lunch and – in child voices – wanting to trade for the sub one of them has bought?

An Asian fellow brags he’s packing one of the ultimate all-time kid treats when he says, “I’ve got pudding!” Still, the sub fellow won’t budge.

It even has a bully, a burly guy who demands: “Gimme your sub!” “I’m your boss.” “So?”

Too funny – and it totally reflects the lessons many of us learned from a metal lunchbox!

And there’s even one where a pretty girl walks up to a dorky-looking guy about to tuck into his sub sandwich and she asks, “Do you want to be my boyfriend?”

He enthusiastically replies “SURE!” – and she promptly grabs his sub and announces, “Then give me you sub … you’re my boyfriend now,” wheels and walks away.

In the longer version, the hapless hungry guy says, “Thi-this isn’t working out for me!”

I never saw it happening THAT blatantly, but as we grew older, food treats offered from a lunch box or a brown paper bag was a good barometer of who had a crush on who.

I was more interested in Sports at that time, so I never really had a crush, but about the fourth grade or so I was the SUBJECT of a crush.

For some completely incomprehensible reason, a very pretty girl named Angela had a crush on me and showed it by sharing with me or outright giving me the best treats in her Barbie lunchbox.

I didn’t really see the purpose of all this crush stuff at the time, but I was perfectly content to let her call me her boyfriend if it got me a lot of yummy things to eat!

Naturally in fourth and fifth grade, MOST of us boys were more interested in sports or superheroes and boy stuff.

The guys who DID hang out with the girls were viewed with a slight bit of disdain – of course, a few grades down the road, we were left scratching our heads over why THOSE fellas got all the girls and we were bumbling messes trying to figure out how to ask a girl to the dance.

I am hoping the creative minds behind those sub commercials with adults sounding and acting like little kids will keep it going and remind us all of the life lessons we learned at lunchtime!

One trend in lunchboxes I detest is the switch from metal to plastic or vinyl. Ugh!

The metal character lunchboxes have character, paint on the metalic surface and the comforting feeling of strength.

For the most part, the plastic or vinyl ones are molded with stickers that easily peel off. While fully functional, they simply feel cheap to those of us who had metal lunchboxes. But all kids adapt to things and there are generations who might see a metal lunchpail as archaic and old.

There are new cloth ones that are kind of in between, especially if you are taking them outdoors, like camping or on a picnic or tailgating or to a ballgame.

Maybe the wave of nostalgia-based products will see the return of the metal lunchbox as the norm again instead of the exception.

It just seems the plastic ones are too … open to being, the word “faked” is too strong, but it just seems too easy to take a generic molded plastic or vinyl box and slap a sticker on it. The sticker could be modern or it could depict something from the past.

That’s why I collect only metallic ones. Yes, you can do a facsimile of a metal lunchbox from the past, but even that would be cool since it is metal. A plastic one with stickers … just not the same.

The metal lunchboxes are more of a time capsule.

I guess the closest thing that equates is a mostly metal and wood car from the 1950s or 1960s compared to some of the cars today that have molded plastic fenders and interiors.

Obviously, metal is harder and more solid than plastics, and the end the result is a feeling of the same.

Yes, there are still tin lunchboxes out there, but they seem to be a vanishing breed.

My daughters all grew up in the plastic/vinyl age of school lunchboxes. A pity!

They had some of the same long-time girl favorites like Barbie and Peanuts and such as did the girls I went to school with, but in sticker-covered vinyl and not shiny metal boxes.

And in all probability, none of them remember any of the lunchboxes they had no matter how cherished they were at the time.

OK, maybe they can recall Barbie and My Little Pony and Smurfs and Rainbow Brite and Care Bears that accompanied them to school, but they just aren’t nostalgic about them or have any desire to collect them as those of us from the metallic lunchbox generation.

To us, vinyl was for records. Like the lunchboxes, we probably wish we had kept our record collections in their proper album covers and .45 sleeves and in good shape.

I like many of our time have a stack of .45s and a few albums that have been scuffed and scratched and abused during moves and during trips from the closet to the record player and back.

Today, many of the vinyls, records, not lunchboxes, are worth some money.

Speaking of collectibles worth money, what boy didn’t have his mom, or wife, throw out his baseball card collection at one point or another? Mine came on the move from Charleston, S.C., back to Florida, when my dad and my brother made the transfer and mom stayed behind to pack things up for the move.

My baseball cards got lost in transition.

Now I cringe whenever I am at the mall and there is an indoor flea market of vendors with tables in the center. There’s always baseball card vendors who always seem to display the baseball cards from the years I had collected – and they are worth a fortune these days!

These days, they even ruined the joy of buying a pack of baseball cards – no gum! Back in the day, there was a pasty large flat piece of bubble gum that had its own unique flavor … and consistency.

Back to vinyl … records good, lunchboxes not so much.

Among the most valuable lessons learned from lifting the lid of a metal lunchbox (we really didn’t have plastic or vinyl lunchboxes back in the day) or opening the top of your brown paper bag: the value of making an unfavorable deal to win influence, popularity or friendship.

As a grownup, you might call it bribery, payola or tribute.

Or, if you are more optimistic, you might say giving over-value in a deal earns good will.

Trading a creme-filled delight, a piece of homemade cake, brownies or a candy bar for celery or carrot sticks or other less-desirable item may not have made your tummy very happy that day, but it could win valuable points with the benefactor of your “generosity.”

Now, you had to walk a fine line using this tactic. If you weren’t careful in the words you used or how you carried out the trade, instead of scoring people points, you might walk away with the label of “chump.”

Trading food during lunch period was a great way to learn about human nature.

Trying to read another kids face as he or she considered a trade offer was a science in itself … if you were observant, you could tell if someone was going to take the trade, were thinking about a counter offer or considering other factors, like how not trading will affect if the other kid will like you for the rest of day, or week, which seemed like a lifetime back then.

Now I’m wondering how many of my classmates grew up to be poker players!

We learned to beware the kid who kept his or her trade-able commodity hidden in their lunchbox or brown paper bag, peeking inside the lid or slightly opening the bag to make sure they HAD said item without actually showing you.

If you weren’t careful and observant and a good listener, the cookies you might have traded for might turn out to be Lorna Doones or Fig Newtons or something with pecans (all acceptable to the adult or more refined child’s palate) instead of the chocolate chip or Oreos or Mallomars you were expecting merely because he or she said cookie and didn’t divulge exactly what KIND of cookie.

Of course, you REALLY had to be on your guard if Billy decided he liked you that day and instead of merely demanding the tastiest part of your lunch.

If you asked him, “What kind of cookies do you have?” and he might say, “Remember those homemade brownies I had yesterday?”

You would be daydreaming about those mouthwatering brownies as you reached out your candy bar at the same time he was holding out a plastic bag hidden in his hand … and then as he secured your candy bar, Billy would add “These ain’t them.”

Then as he chuckled and started to unwrap your Snickers bar, you were left looking dumbfounded at the bag of yucky macadamia nut cookies he put in your hand.

Another valuable lesson learned from a lunchbox: Buyer beware!

Lunchtime was also like the United Nations of food!

All of us would often pull leftovers from our metal lunch boxes or brown paper bags, and it was courtesy to give your best friend a taste of some family or ethnic dish they had never had before.

Or even things from the store, as grocery goodies were just starting to explode and there were all sorts of new products to try. And our parents couldn’t buy them all.

Being given a taste or a piece or a bit is how I remember first trying Moon Pies, Pinwheels, Pringles, Space Food Sticks, star fruit, navel oranges, real homemade family-recipe Italian lasagna.

Now being the sharer is harder to remember because you are the one to whom the treat was routine, but I do recall in the first grade taking German chocolate cake to school and it was a big hit.

That was also the first time I remember being embarrassed in public – I tried to convince everyone that I was of German heritage and the cake was from a family recipe … and all the kids were eating it up (the lie) and thinking it was cool.

But with a very Welsh last name, it didn’t fly with the teacher, who called me out on it!

I learned to never tell a whopper because somewhere, somehow there is someone or some piece of information that will leave you looking like a fool!

Regardless if you brought lunch to school in a metal or plastic lunchbox, a paper bag or even – gasp! – bought a school lunch, every kid learned the art of the goodies deal … yes, we were the original Day Traders!

“Trade you my banana and grapes for your chocolate chip cookies”

“If you let me have your slice of cake, I’ll give you my moon pie for a week.”

Or, as the class bully Billy would say: “Gimme that candy bar.” “What will you trade for it?” “Your face, the way it is.” “Sounds like a deal to me, Billy!”

Lunchtime brought out the fierce business man or woman in all of us as we scoured the long tables hoping for a glimpse of some delectable morsel of a favorite treat – all the while hoping mom had packed either a keeper or a trade-able commodity.

Good things in the insulated bottle were especially prized as you can share or trade one capful and still have one capful to savor.

I remember vividly two separate grades where you could buy ice cream if you finished your lunch.

My mom parents would’ve been very surprised to learn that despite being a card-carrying vegetable hater at home, for some reason I loved the peas the lunchroom served in the first of the years.

Then – a shocker to me this day – I liked the cooked spinach the second year, which came at a different school.

Even to this day, I love fresh spinach in my salad, but cook it into a slimy glop and I won’t touch it with a 10-foot fork. There are many foods I like today that I hated as a child, but cooked spinach seems to be the only one that works in reverse.

In both the peas and spinach years, I really cleaned up – literally, other kids’ plate.

In exchange for devouring their peas or spinach so they could buy ice cream, they either bought me my ice cream or gave me another suitable treat or gave me cold, hard cash. Usually a quarter or two.

Yes, trading treats was definitely a skill. To us, it wasn’t just lunchtime, it was the food mall open for business.

Even today, I often wonder how many of my classmates ended up in the stock market!

One of my all-time favorite metal lunchboxes was Star Trek!

Unfortunately, it didn’t belong to me.

My best friend Jim happened to be a Trekker long before being a Trekker was cool, and he had the cool lunchpail to prove it.

While most of our childhood lunch boxes, metal or plastic, were rectangular and flat, the Star Trek one was domed – like the flat black metal lunchboxes many of our fathers lugged to work.

Too bad they didn’t have a father-child lunchbox swap for a day back then, or ever for that matter – it would have been fun for the hard-working dads trying to discreetly carry a Snoopy or Barbie or Bonanza or Batman and Robin or Superman lunchpail to work while all of us kids took an army of the identical black domed lunchpails to school!

Anyway, back to the Star Trek domed box, Jim’s lunchbox really stood out from the rest of ours that year. Ours stacked neatly like bricks on the shelf in the back of the classroom, but his stood alone because of the dome. Often, it was the line of demarcation between the stacked wall of metal lunch boxes and the neat row of brown paper bag lunches.

As I recall, Star Trek was aired on Friday nights at 10 p.m. I watched it occasionally, but we were usually at my older brother’s football or basketball games at that time, but I do remember that fateful broadcast when they announced that due to viewer support Star Trek had been renewed for another season.

I really became a Trekker in college a few years later. One of the TV stations in Tallahassee, where I attended Florida State University (go Noles!) would practically every weekend run Star Trek all night long – a Kirk, Spock and McCoy marathon for us students who had to pull all-nighters.

Usually they would have a host dressed in a cheesy Star Trek uniform – sometimes a blue one that had the host wearing cheap Spock pointed ears – giving interesting facts about the series.

Sometimes the best “cheese” isn’t necessarily served up in a lunch box!

It was then that I realized I yearned for a Star Trek lunchbox … of course, I would have looked pretty silly lugging a metal lunchbox to college, but I would have liked to just have one to put on a shelf and look at.

That is probably the first time I thought about lunchboxes from years gone by and viewed them as collectible items.

Sadly, I was in school with a wife and child, so there was no spare money for such things as hobby collecting. Too bad, metal lunchboxes would’ve been much cheaper back then and worth a fortune today!

Thinking of metal themed lunchboxes we used when young reminds me of an unspoken, unwritten pecking order of lunch that was all important to kiddom.

Or so it seemed to us at the time.

Some kids had the top-of-the-line, hot trendy lunch boxes of the day, which generally merely represented either a favorite TV show or character or meant we were willing to follow the other lunch lemmings in an elementary school version of keeping up with the Joneses.

Others didn’t care that their lunchbox was several years old, tattered and rusted, with the the little metal clip that held the insulated bottle in place missing so that their thermos bottle (if they still had it) rolled around and made a thumping sound when moved. They were going to hold on to their childhood hero or theme come hell or high water, gosh darn it!

Still others just didn’t want to get involved, or their families couldn’t spare the few dollars, which we never realized was a lot of money back then, especially when there were many siblings lugging lunch to school.

Your lunch container of choice was so important to you individually, but in actuality drew little attention from other kids beyond the first few days of the new school year, or you brought a new one to school after the holidays.

By then, everyone knew you liked G.I. Joe or Star Trek or the Munsters or Batman and Robin or Barbie or Disney or whatever and the focus became what was INSIDE your theme lunchbox.

Another cool metal lunchbox I remember from back in the day was based on The Munsters.

It featured the Munsters family all sitting in their cool, suped-up car.

That Munster mobile on the lunchpail always generated talk amongst us savvy TV watchers about which was faster: the Munsters car or the Batmobile.

My money was always on the Batmobile.

As I recall, since the speed demon vehicles in both TV series were actual cars that ran, someone somehow arranged a race between the two.

I always knew the Batmobile would smoke the Munsters mobile, and in the race the Batmobile did indeed win – but by a hair.

I was kind of disappointed that the Batmobile didn’t make the Munsters jalopy eat its dust.

But at least the Batman and Robin lunchbox was cooler the Munsters’ pail!

And upon closing your Batman and Robin lunch box, you could always in that cool TV voice somberly announce: “Tune in for lunch tomorrow, same Bat time, same Bat lunchbox!” – whereas with the Munsters, the only thing we could come up with was opening our lunch and emitting our best impression of Herman Munster’s unique laugh.

Just wasn’t as fun as the Batman lunchbox!

Something else that couldn’t have been much fun for Fred Gwynne, who played Herman, the Frankenstein-like flat head of the Munster family – the makeup.

Adam West had a super-cool cowl, and at the end of the day, slip it off and he’s done. But Gwynne had hours and hours in the makeup chair before AND after a hard day’s work. Hat’s off to the man, who of course we lost back in 1993.