When I think back on all those first days of school, I, of course, remember them from my perspective:

Praying to the Homeroom Gods that I would get the best teacher assignment;
Packing away my sticker and Sweet Valley High book collections, knowing they would be gathering dust while I spent nine months doing stupid stuff like studying and learning;
Buffing my Trapper Keeper to a Bat-Signal-bright sheen;
And selecting just the right outfit to make just the right impression on that first, fortuitous day.

But, in retrospect, things must have been pretty rough for my Mom and Dad as well.

My brother, sister and I tended to want to eat regularly, and I’m sure keeping growing bodies in nutrition and energy requires a more sophisticated strategy than simply throwing some Flintstone vitamins into the morning’s pancake batter.

Plus there’s the matter of keeping up with food trends and what we would inevitably see our friends bringing to school lunch that we would then have to have for our own the next day, along with the question of what to prepare for the near-holy after-school snack. And dinner! Sakes alive, don’t forget dinner!

All that without having the benefit of hitting up the Interwebz for ideas. Talk about walking uphill to school both ways in the wintertime – that must have been rough.

Read More →