Someone To Start My Orange

"I just want someone to start my orange." Not sure why that thought came into my head, today. I guess I am struggling a bit and reminiscing of better days gone by. When one gets 70+ years old, I think that is probably a bit normal as the aches and pains one has earned in life, start to catch up with us. 

But my mama…

Gone from us now, almost ten years; and though she was ninety, it was still far too soon. She was the comfort of all comfort when I was a kid. She always knew just what to do. A particular memory flooded my heart today, leaving me in silent  tears, while tightly holding my breath. This, in order to keep my sadness silent. But, in truth, the memory also brought a smile.

When I was little and attending our small town, grade school, I was a bit shy. I often couldn’t do things, because I was afraid to try...until I got mad and then I could do anything… But I digress.

I was so shy, I was afraid to ever utilize the "hot lunch" service at our school. The price was only a quarter; and if one didn’t want to carry a lunch packed from home, the student could get a hot lunch, with milk. A student could also just get the milk for 6 cents. I didn’t do that either. I didn’t like milk.

I only remember getting "hot lunch" one day, in my entire 8 years at that grade school. Yes, it went to 8th grade! And then we were bussed to the larger junior high school, south, and then to high school as sophomores. 

One morning when I was very young and in grade school, my mom was very sick. She wasn’t up to making lunches for my siblings and me. As she handed me the quarter and told me I would have to get lunch from school that day, I balked. I told her I didn’t want to get "hot lunch". She didn’t understand that the reason was because I was afraid I wouldn’t know how to do it and that I would be embarrassed by not knowing what to do. Poor Mama. She basically begged me to just take the quarter and get hot lunch. 

I still remember stumbling nervously through the hot lunch line, not knowing what to pick up, or which way to go. I picked up a milk carton, at the front of the cafeteria line, even though I didn’t like milk. And then I heard someone lecture me… "No, no, no! You will get your milk at the end of the line. These are for the kids simply wanting milk only, for 6 cents."

Ugh...I knew I would do it wrong...and then I headed the wrong way. Someone else pointed me the right direction. Somehow, I made it through the rest of the line, as they filled my tray. After eating, I had to figure out how to return my tray and make sure I cleaned it correctly and put it in the right place. Sounds silly, I know; but to a shy little girl that was basically afraid of everything social, it was devastating. I do remember liking the lunch and telling Mama how good it was when I got home from school that day. Sometimes, as I look back, and think of how shy and uncertain I was, I wonder how I ever made it through school at all.

I don’t think I ever “took hot lunch” again. I like things the same every day. I do better with routine...even as an adult. Routine for me then, was carrying a lunch box. Eventually, as I got older, I also became embarrassed about that. It wasn’t cool to carry a box. It had to be a brown paper sack. My mom willingly obliged. I still remember that package of small brown lunch sacks that we had to pick up from the market from time to time.

That little story is to set the stage for the memory that made a visit today. But oh my goodness, the stories I have about that school cafeteria!! And they flood my mind as I try to relay even just the short one. This post may get way distracted from my intent. But that cafeteria!! I can literally smell it, and feel it as I write. It was in the basement of the old gymnasium, where I also have a ton of memories! Carnivals, cake walks, school dances, graduations and "Go you Chicken Fat, go!" But that is for another post I guess. You can read some of that here, and here and here. Oh, and here. Too much?? lol

Back to my lunch box. My lunches from home were often the same. Usually a tuna, or bologna sandwich on white bread, (often homemade) a cupcake or cookie and a fruit - usually an orange or a banana, because I didn’t like apples that well. My siblings and I were thrilled when we would have one of Mom's homemade cinnamon rolls show up in our lunchbox. 

As I said, Mom would often pack an orange in my lunch, as our fruit. If I remember correctly it was always a whole orange. We never had "baggies", ourselves, back then. Mama always wrapped everything in wax paper. I don’t think wax paper would be strong enough to prevent the juice of an orange leaking everywhere. Without a baggie or plastic container, juice would get all over everything if the orange was sliced.

But anyway, this memory is about a whole orange. One school year, several times in a row, I left the orange uneaten, bringing it home in my lunch box at the end of the day. Finally one day, Mama asked me why I wasn’t eating my orange at lunch.

“Because I can’t peel it, Mommy. I can’t get it started." At home, Mom always either started the orange peel for me with her thumb, or she just sliced it and gave it to me that way.

I will never forget the look on my mom’s face when I said that. Her face lit up in understanding and maybe just a bit of a look of motherly failure. I hate to call it sorrow, but as a mom, it kind of is that. You know the feeling you get when you know you have let your child down...even if it is something as small as an unpeeled orange – yeah, that look.

After that, every time I had an orange in my lunch there was always a little notch out of the peeling, probably started with her thumb or maybe a knife. That was the only way I was able to peel my orange the rest of the way by myself. It didn't have to be sliced and I could eat it without juice being all over my sandwiches and cupcakes. Mamas are the best for fixing everything.

So as I struggled today with what ever little thing it was that I was doing, this is the thought that came to me. “I wish I had someone to start my orange.” I hadn't thought of that in years - probably decades.

I don’t need a lot. But today I need someone to start my orange. And her name is Mama.