The Lone Ranger Lunchbox (short story, 1957)

The Lone Ranger Lunchbox
[1954-1957—109 East Arch Street, St. Paul, Minnesota]


[1954-1957 at the Winter School] We couldn’t always afford the hot lunches at St. Louis school [in St. Paul, Minnesota] during my elementary years so my mother bought me a lunchbox, a Lone Ranger designed lunchbox, and I was so very proud to own it: yes indeed, very bigheaded about it also, I suppose, if kids had heroes, and not absorptions, he was kind of my hero. And my mother would make my peanut butter sandwiches, from none other than Peter Pan Peanut Butter jars, not sure if they sell that kind anymore; then of course came Skippy Peanut Butter down the lane, and a little computation, I was nine-years old then.
I think we went back and forth with which peanut butter, I was trying to figure out which was best for my lunchbox, I mean, it had to be the best for the Lone Ranger lunchbox, for I was carrying his symbol about, and I was his representative, even had a secret badge, and belonged to a club of his if I recall right. And amongst those sandwiches, were a lone banana or apple, or orange, I hoped not the orange always, it was too messy, and I’d just stick a finger in it and suck out all the juice, and go wash my hands. Thus, I preferred the banana.
Then my brother Mike and I would march on down to school, and when lunchtime came, I’d march on down to the basement of the 1886, schoolhouse, and eat lunch in the lunchroom. There were different times for lunch for different classes and grades, and so Mike being two grades higher than I, ate before me, and left school before me, at 2:00 PM, verses, my 4:00 PM. But I always prayed mom would forget to buy wax paper for the sandwiches, and have to give us .25-cents [or was it .15-cents?] for lunch: yes I preferred the hot lunch to the cold, although I liked bringing my Lone Ranger lunchbox.
But yes, yes undeniably, there was a problem though: when mom put the ham onto the sandwiches, and wrapped them in wax paper, by noon the following day, they’d be soggy, really saggy, like a sponge full of milky something or another—the bread that is, and you’d have to drag the meat off and out. But I never said anything, lest I end up with peanut butter five days in a row.
In the lunch room Linda Macaulay the eye catcher of my study room, we had two grades in our room, and between thirty and forty students [big rooms, and lots of heads to look over, at and around], as I was about to say, Linda Macaulay, she was the prettiest one in class, and we sat together now and then, more than, than now, but it happened. I even stuck up for her once, that is, fought over her I should say. I suppose I was trying to be like the Lone Ranger, the hero, like Mr. Clayton Moore, God bless his soul, now gone and not forgotten though.
Anyhow, this is the tale, the story of my first lunchbox you could say, in those far-off days of my youth, when I was being formed, and we become whom we are often times by our heroes, and I am sad to say, there are not many sports folks, movie stars, singers or any one out there worthy to emulate nowadays—even many parents are bad examples, I guess the dollar has soaked their souls likened to those ham sandwiches I just mentioned a while ago; or they are to lazy to discipline them.


Written in St. Paul, Minnesota 8-2005 (reedited, 5-2005)