WAX PAPER AND PROGRESS
I went through elementary school starting from the mid-1940’s.
It was a small town school for Kindergarten and grades 1-6 with 1 class of 20 or 30 kids for each grade.
In those days all the kids brought lunches in paper bags with sandwiches and other foods wrapped in wax paper (or sometimes newspaper).
Kids brought every kind of sandwich and lunch food item you can think of: PB&J, tuna, ham, egg salad, cold chicken, left-overs of all kinds.
There was no cafeteria and no refrigeration for the lunches.
There was no plastic wrap, aluminum foil or Tupperware.
No Superman lunchboxes with little plastic vacuum bottles.
Everything was wrapped in paper and kept at room temperature all morning.
Lunches were kept in the book compartment under the old style combination desk/chair until lunch time.
Then we ate lunch in the same seat in the same classroom where we spent the rest of the day.
After lunch we cleaned up and threw the trash away but kept the paper bag to bring home for mom to reuse and reuse again.
Then we had an outside recess period in the school playground.
The playground was just a lot with a set of swings and a big metal slide.
The swings were always busy but the slide didn’t get very much use.
The surface got so dirty from the rain, dust and exposure that you couldn’t really slide down it.
Then one day one of the kids discovered that you could clean and polish the slide surface with wax paper and make it as slick as goose grease.
After that we all saved our wax paper from lunch and would swarm all over that slide, rubbing and polishing like mad with left over sandwich wrappers.
Then we would sit on a piece of left over wax paper and shoot down that slide like we were shot from a gun.
When I got out of high school the same swing set and slide were still there in the old elementary school playground.
But they had a new building addition with a cafeteria and no one brought sandwiches wrapped in wax paper to polish the slide with.
Those sound like delightful times, thank you for sharing.
I remember watching the Waltons once and being surprised that John boy had his sandwiches wrapped in folded wax paper. I didn’t realize at the time that that was all that was available!
everything was kept at room temperature and still everyone survived? I imagine that!
Pretty neat about the wax paper usage. Those were the days when children were allowed to be inventive. I bet you even created your own games on the playground, not needing expensive video games to be entertained with!
I guess my school days predate yours by about ten years. I attended a two room school with four grades in each room. No electricity, running water or bathrooms-just an outhouse. There were five or six students in each class.
I also saved my paper lunch bag, but the wax paper was supposed to be folded neatly and brought home in the bag. Mother used this wax paper to keep the top of our black cooking stove squeaky clean as we toasted bread on the top of the stove-no electric toaster.
Our “playground” was an old field behind the school. No swings, slides- just grubby old field. Everyone was crazy over baseball and if anyone was lucky enough to bring a ball to school, they were top-dog that day-called all the shots, made the rules and assigned bases-all extra players went into the outfield. No bats-just sticks. Just once, somehow I was fortunate enough to bring a ball to school and proudly started a game. Alas within a few minutes, someone hit that ball all the way out into the tall bushes, never to be seen again. We had to go back to the silly games of tag, king of the mountain or ring around the rosy.
We were supposed to be tough from an early age. I remember walking home alone in the dark at a very young age. I was scared to death but wouldn’t let on to anyone.
Thinking about it now, maybe that was the cause of my complete refusal to go to school when I was in the second grade. Now, I proudly display my rank card which states “absent until April” and below that all A’s and at the very bottom “Promoted to grade three”. To this day, I am fearful of being out after dark alone and have only recently admitted this to the complete amazement of my children. Guess I kept my fears well hidden for eighty years.
Drinking water was kept in an earthern ware container with a small faucet near the bottom. I don’t ever remember seeing anyone clean this container. Some student would go to a neighbors with a five gallon pail and get a pail of water and dump it into the crock. Tasted good on a hot day. We all drank out of the tin cup hanging beside the water jug.
Good old days!!!