Memories are really something.  We can have all sorts of memories.   From very good to very bad… and everything in between.

Tonight I was thinking about our school cafeteria lunches, when we were growing up.  I have lots of fond memories of this.  I loved our school lunches.  The cook was Mrs. Brandenberger… or something like that.  Boy oh boy… we lucked out at Our Lady of Mercy, when they found her.

She could cook up a storm.  I can’t hardly remember a single lunch that I didn’t love.  Of course… I had my favorites.  Everybody loved pizza day and hamburger day.  But a lot of times, we would have some sort of casserole something or another.  They were always just lick-your-lips good.  Friday was always mac and cheese… or fish sandwiches… or grilled cheese.  Catholics.

But probably my favorite thing… at the end of the lunch line… right after the fruits and desserts… and right before the milk… were these big huge boards stacked with buttered bread sandwiches or peanut-butter bread sandwiches.  Always white bread.  And always cut in half on the diagonal.

I LOVED them both.  But my favorite thing was to eat PB Bread with chocolate milk.  You could have as much as you wanted.  But here was the catch.  You had to eat what you took.  This included the food that you nabbed when you went through the line.

I was a pretty big eater as a kid.  I burned it a mile a minute.  But one day… I really had the hankering for the peanut butter bread sandwiches.  I procured an entire stack.  I even took two chocolate milks.   As foreshadowing does in these types of tales…. you may be guessing that I couldn’t eat it all.

Not a problem.  I was clever too.  I stuffed my Johnny Marzetti Noodles… and the remainder of my PB Bread into my half-drunk-chocolate milk carton.  All I had to do was slip that tray through the  exit window, and I was free and clear.

When I had arranged everything on the tray just so… I began my clever exodus.  It was the perfect crime.  But then.  But then, but then, but then.  Just as I got to the window… Sister Adriana took over as the tray – monitor.

Yes.  “Sister-I-will-slap-you-down-Adriana”… the Principal of the school.  She knew.  I knew she knew….. but What The Flunk….???  Were there cameras?  Was she a witch?  Was there a rat at my table.  WHAT?

No turning back… no turning around.  Just pop it through the window Polly.

Just as I stepped up… she grabbed the over-inflated chocolate milk carton and put the big stop hand in my face.  She opened the carton and scooped the container clean on to my plate.  I then felt a painful tug on my ear… and I was “placed” back at a table to consume my swill.

So as you can see… memories are something.  They can come in many forms, shapes and sizes.  The good, and the bad memories can even co-mingle.  And… such is the case here.

I think it is important for us to remember.  We can… and probably should… learn from our memories.  Both the good and the bad.  It is how we grow.

I certainly learned a valuable lesson that day.

Nuns are a lot stronger than they look.

A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen. ~Edward de Bono
 
 The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don’t come to mind when we want them. ~Friedrich Nietzsche