Tastes Like Nostalgia

I have a warm slice of Hy Vee pepperoni pizza and a Mountain Dew. Now all I need is half of a Nutty Bar, and I’ll be back in high school again.


I didn’t go to public school. Well, I did for a while, but when we moved away from my hometown the summer after sixth grade, my mom got a job at a private school. Since she was going to be going there every day anyway, and they offered free tuition to the children of faculty, it seemed pretty silly for my brothers and I not to join her there.


I probably missed out on quite a bit by not simply walking down to the local public high school, but attending private school gave me a unique experience that I would not have had anywhere else.


First of all, there was the fundraising. The government doesn’t give any money to private schools, so if you want, say, desks, you have to ask other people for the money to buy them. If you want to go on a class trip, a club outing, or if you want to be able to buy decorations for the prom dance, you have to fleece your friends and family.  I have hawked enough candy bars, distributed enough flyers, and done inventory at enough grocery and retail stores to last me for the rest of my life. If my kids ever need to fund raise for anything, they’ll have to ask their father to help them, because the very idea makes me queasy.


The school was small enough that it wasn’t terribly cost effective to even offer a hot lunch program, so every day, every single student had to bring their own sack lunch. I ate a lot of hot pockets in high school. So naturally, the absence of a hot lunch program became one of the ways various clubs made money.


A couple of times a week, one of the clubs would sell lunch tickets before school. They usually went for around $2.50, and they’d buy you a main dish, a side dish, a dessert, and a drink.  Hardworking parents and teachers donating their time would help the kids put together things like sloppy joes, spaghetti, or something we called “walking tacos” which were taco fixin’s tossed into a personal bag of Fritos (and they were delicious). The school had a deal with the local Hy Vee, and was able to get large amounts of pizza for less than it would cost the average person wishing to purchase pizza in bulk, and so it was easier for the kids to raise money on lunches that way. Pizza was the easiest lunch to serve, too, since it consisted of slapping a slice on a plate and setting out the personal sized bags of chips, Little Debbie desserts, and drinks to let kids grab themselves.


The taste of Hy Vee pizza reminds me of hanging out with my friends during lunch. Watching Elizabeth eat her pizza layer by layer (toppings first, then sauce, then the soft part of the bread, then the hard crust), quickly finishing Math homework for later, and running back and forth across the gym with a dollar to buy an extra slice of pizza to share.


Hy Vee pizza isn’t the awesomest in the world, but it’s also not the worst. The best part about it, probably, is that it tastes like nostalgia. Just by having a meal, I can go back and remember the best parts of high school without actually having to be there.


Man, I’m really craving a Nutty Bar.