Posted on 09/18/2011 6:17:20 PM PDT by Bluestateredman
I remember. Lunch cost c. 35 cents (that would be close to 3 or 4 $ in today’s token currency). However, in my school, the food budget was subsidised by the federal goverment, because so many of the students were children of federal employees, and the cafeteria received federal surplus foodstuffs from the Department of Agriculture.
Whatever the poverty rate was in 1949, I’m sure my family qualified.
However, my parents would have died before they took a handout. My father was a bus driver, and even back then, was smart enough not to join a union. Greyhound tried several times to get him to work for then, but he refused as he would not join a union.
My mom could make delicious meals out of a few ingredients: dried beans, cornbread, and either a salad from her garden, or some vegetable she had “put up” (canned) during the summer
There were three of us kids, and we really didn’t think of ourselves as poor because everyone in our neighborhood and our school was in the same boat. Both of my parents would have had to think that us kids were starving before they would have taken a handout—government or otherwise.
The three of us all have college degrees today, and have managed to live well.
We owe all of this to the example led by our parents, and for them, I’m very grateful.
But enough about me—didn’t mean to get so carried away......
As I recall (CRS and whatnot!) I paid 35 cents per lunch in HS Upstate NY '59 & '60. It went up to 45 cents and my Mom sometimes packed my lunch, as we always had more month left than money. The only thing I remember not liking was the Mac&Cheese - still won't eat it today! And the steam-table vegies weren't great either, but we didn't go hungry.
All of this can be laid at the feet of LBJ and his destructive 'Great Society'.
didn’t some Al Franken charity do something like this ,too?
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