Lunch Boxes

A few Sundays back, I was having brunch and happened to look up above the bar to find a row of old metal lunch boxes. (This is why I love brunch—you can eat at a bar and drink before noon!) They were sitting above a T.V. that was playing a DVD of T.V. commercials from the 70s. 

Kids today don’t take their lunch to school in metal lunch boxes anymore. 

Instead, they either use brown paper bags or, if they have more progressive minded parents, they take their gluten-free, non-PBJ lunches encased in soft-sided reusable faux lunch bag contraptions. If they are really fortunate, then they will have a re-purposed, fair trade model from Whole Foods.

But alas, they will never enjoy the fun of a metal lunch box, dented and rusting at the edges because it got left in the rain at the bus stop with paint that may or may not have lead and a Thermos bottle loaded to the hilt with BPA! That’s how we rolled in the 70s! Even the kids lived on the edge with their fake cigarette candy bubble gum!

When I was in grade school in the 70s, lunch boxes had been around for some time, with the first one appearing in 1935 with Mickey Mouse on it. By the time television hit its stride in the 50s and 60s, the movie/T.V. show-tie-in was in full swing.

OK, I'm not sure how they were able to breath on the moon!

Speaking of TV shows, my first lunch box was a Space 1999 lunch box. This piece of classic T.V. sci-fi melodrama was about the crew of a base on the moon called  Moonbase Alpha, and how they struggled each week to survive after a massive explosion throws the Moon from Earth’s orbit into deep space. It aired for three seasons (1975-77), and I think my first real crush was on the actress Barbara Bain who played Dr. Helena Russell. (Pictured above.)

I also had a bright green lunch box with dragsters on it. (No, not those kind!) I think I got this one after I went to my first drag race when I was in the 2nd or 3rd grade. My last one was red with Peanuts cartoons on it. I must have have read those strips about a hundred times. Poor ol' Charlie Brown never did get that kite out of the tree! 

And I remember the day I had to retire the Peanuts lunch box because one of my friends told me that once I went to Junior High, I would have to trade in my lunch box for a plain, brown paper bag. That was the day my childhood truly died.

I also think that we were a better country when metal lunch boxes ruled the schoolhouse cafeteria. It certainly made us better at logistics, or at least our moms. You see, moms had to pack a fulfilling, nutritious lunch in a space that was slightly larger than a paperback book after the Thermos was placed in there. My mom was the master at this. PB&J (again, this was the 70s—we lived on the edge) took up less space than a ham and cheese with iceberg lettuce—likewise, a bologna sandwich. Twinkies could be crammed in a tight space too. And we were all budding commodities traders: I’ll trade you a Twinkie for your Little Debbie oatmeal cream pie! And of course, there were the days I knew the larder was low. This usually meant a plain cheese sandwich made from the heals of a bread loaf and some desiccated carrot sticks. At least that was better than the kid who ended up with a green bell pepper at least once a week!

These days, when I pack my kids’ lunches for school, I recall those metal lunch box days fondly. And I feel that my kids are getting shorted compared to what I got. Though every now and then, I will smuggle something sweet and give them a “don’t tell wink”—the 70s still live!

Ice Ice Baby

A few days ago, we celebrated the U.S. of A’s 241st birthday.  We did so, no doubt, with plenty of beer, burgers, hot dogs, and fireworks. But what makes America—dare I say this?—great? What is this thing called “Murica”? Is it our big cars? Big houses? Hot dogs? Apple pie? No, it's something even more prosaic. It's ice. But it’s more than that, because many nations have ice, it’s rather the ubiquity of it that defines America and makes us stand tall above the other nations of the world. Ice is everywhere and it's generally free for the taking!

This recently occurred to me one night walking down a dimly light hallway to my hotel room, having just arrived from the airport.  Around the corner from my room was an alcove, and above it was a sign that simply read "ICE." Inside, an attentive ice machine hummed with stalwart efficiency. 

This was a large, convention hotel (39 floors in all). By my rough calculation, there had to be at least 90 ice machines in the building, not including those standing watch in the bars and restaurants. That's a lot of ice. I'm not sure the iceberg that sank the Titanic contained that much frozen water. 

But then again, hotels have had a long association with ice and ice machines.

Back in the day, the first thing I did when we stayed in a motel--after testing the T.V., of course--was take the little plastic bucket with the plastic liner and get some ice. It made little difference that we wouldn't need all that ice, in fact we didn't use it most of the time, it was just...what...you...did. 

And so that night, out of habit, I grabbed my bucket and shuffled to the ice machine, and with a cacophonous roar, old faithful filled my bucket to the rim with clear, clean ice. Unfortunately, there was no minibar in the room and the bar downstairs had closed. And in the morning, I had a bucket full of clear, clean water. 

I don't think I've ever seen an ice machine in a European hotel. 

And what is it with the Europeans and ice? If you have ever visited Europe and asked for a Coke with ice, you'd be luck to get three, but more likely, two diminutive ice cubes. Europe has trains that travel 200 mph and amazing highways, so surely they have mastered the mundane engineering that goes into designing and building ice machines. This is likely one reason the Europeans are lousy at cocktails. Cocktails require ice (or at least the good ones) and lots of it. 

Maybe we use a lot of ice in America—and let’s be honest here—because we can. We can afford to produce tons of ice for cocktails, ice cream, and ice sculptures at wedding receptions. Ice has always conveyed a sense of luxury and decadence. After all, the Romans had ice and snow mixed with their juices and wines for cooling effects. Though  likely apocryphal, the Roman emperor Nero would have snow and ice transported by runners from the mountains to Rome. Top that Pax Americana! 

There’s a lot of talk out there about American decline. I don’t see it based on the 24 oz. cups filled to the brim with perfectly shaped cubes of crystal clear manmade ice. I’m not going to worry until I have to ask for a fourth cube of ice at my local McDonalds. At that point, I better have my passport ready and a fast car to the border.