By Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette:
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OUT FOR LUNCH
The other day when I met my friend, Grace, at Peking Express, I realized that after 30-some years of adulthood, I still get a kick out of going out for lunch.
During my childhood days, even the word itself was a novelty: lunch. Back then, in Pawnee Rock and probably in much of rural Kansas, people didn’t eat lunch. Our three meals were breakfast, dinner and supper.
So lunch was something of a fictional word – and one used only at school. We had school lunches, of course, but in the real world it was as if lunch didn’t exist. When I’d try to sneak the word into a conversation, people would pause and then translate, “Oh, you mean dinner?”
In books and on TV shows, people went out for lunch. I pictured women at linen-covered tables in chatter-filled restaurants, sharing secrets, laughing at stories, their forks paused mid-air during a serious conversation. That was what I wanted – noontime communion with friends.
Because Pawnee Rock had no restaurants, it seemed as if we were deprived of something that the rest of the world enjoyed. So, as a child I didn’t dream about becoming famous or of turning the world on with my smile, I just wanted to go out for lunch.
Putting things in context, ours wasn’t a dining-out society in the ‘60s, at least not in my part of central Kansas. People ate at home, every meal. During my first 13 years of life, I don’t think that I ate in a restaurant more than three or four times a year.
It was the pre-golden arch era in neighboring Great Bend, although the town had a chain restaurant, Griff’s Hamburgers, which served 15-cent hamburgers for take-out.
It was always a treat when my family dined out. In Great Bend, Ralph Wallace Buffet was the main attraction. In Larned, we’d hit the Blue Goose once in a blue moon. And both towns had A&Ws where a Papa Burger, Mama Burger and two Baby Burgers would be delivered to the car window along with mugs of root beer.
My friends and I were delighted during my junior high days in the early ‘70s when the Drummer Boy restaurant opened in Great Bend. After roller skating parties, we’d beg our parent-drivers to stop at Drummer Boy.
Soon, McDonalds built a restaurant in Great Bend and the world changed. McDonalds gave people permission to grab meals anytime and all the time.
Sandwiched between my years at Macksville High and the University of Kansas, I attended a year at Barton County Community College. I moved to the metropolis of Great Bend and shared a small basement apartment with two Pawnee Rock friends, Karla and Susan. With each of us spending $25 a month for rent, we could barely afford food. So we lived on tuna, peanut butter and boxed macaroni and cheese.
In addition to a job at the college library, I signed on at McDonalds, working with Susan. The best part about the job (besides the rust-colored polyester uniforms and the fryer-related burn) was that we got our work meals at half-price. A 70-cent Filet-O-Fish was only 35 cents. Fancy that.
Our beloved Karla earned her money at KFC and when she worked the closing shift, she brought home leftover chicken at 10 p.m. Susan and I waited like wolves for Karla to pull into the drive.
At any rate, due to poverty, my dream of going out for lunch had diminished in appeal and possibility. Then one February day a blizzard hit, knocking out power. Karla wasn’t there, but Susan and I felt trapped by the storm. We were bored out of our minds in that basement apartment.
So Susie and I set out on foot – to see if any place in town had power – and food. Wading through foot-high snow, we made it four blocks to Tenth Street and saw lights on in the Highland Manor, a fine restaurant in town.
For my first grown-up lunch experience, with static-filled hair from my stocking cap and wearing snow-caked jeans, I wasn’t exactly the model of lunch sophistication. And, of course, I’m still not. But now that I’m a full-fledged adult, I get to have lunch out with friends whenever I please. It’s so much fun to be a grown-up.
Copyright 2010 ~ Cheryl Unruh
I love this post, Cheryl. It’s just wonderful.
Me too, fun to read and remember my own experiences, which were a far sight different from yours. That makes it more interesting and fun to read. BTW, our “real life” was Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. Supper was for old people.
Laughing at -> “Supper was for old people.”
I remember struggling with the lunch/dinner/supper confusion.
We were a large family and meals out a big investment. I’m sure they still are. But we “ate out” with summer picnics in our yard or at the lake. The only visit to a real restaurant that sticks in my mind was to the original Brookville Hotel, just down the highway west of Salina. The Cozy Inn was an occasional lunchtime connection, where we got sacks of the tiny burgers to go.
Good one, Cheryl. I liked “Sandwiched between my years…” You always use cool word choices like this that make me smile.
Dinner is the big meal of the day, whether it’s at noon or six p.m.-ish. 😀
If you have breakfast and then lunch, then dinner is probably coming in the evening.
If you have breakfast and then dinner, all you’re getting in the evening is supper.
Makes perfect sense to me. 😀
I lived in Larned from 1972-1974 and remember a lot of those restaurants you mention there.
This is funny–I love it! We had breakfast, lunch/dinner (lunch might be something light, like sandwiches or soup, and dinner (usually Sunday dinner or Thanksgiving Dinner) was a BIG meal, and supper was always supper. I don’t think we ever called the evening meal “dinner.”
Good topic, Cheryl, and thank you!
Our family was fairly poor—we called it middle class but it was definitely on the lower rungs—and so we rarely ate out. In fact, I can’t recall a single time going out to eat during my childhood years except for once when our school went on a field trip to Mexican restaurant. Now, you must know this was a restaurant in Albuquerque, famous for its Mexican food—New Mexican food, really there’s a difference—but I “didn’t like” (my words) Mexican food. I wanted a hamburger. Hamburgers, alas, weren’t on the menu. They were, however, shortly after I threw my most vociferous, obnoxious, spoiled-brat fit. That I now love to eat out, and miss New Mexican food terribly, surely must be a tribute to that ill-fated adventure.
Though my experience was different than yours—we were surrounded by the best food in the universe, and you had none—the end result was the same. Here’s to eating out, and eating in, too. Here’s to eating!
They had a Griff’s?! Awesome! Is it still there? There is still a Griff’s in my home town, Sedalia, MO. We’d go there when they had hamburgers on sale 10 for a dollar. I think the big sale is 2 or 3/$1 now. I still stop by once or twice a year. My wife’s uncle has worked there for around 30 years.
After reading your article I remember that my grandparents called lunch “dinner” because that was their main meal of the day. Then the evening meal was supper, and Grandma heated up leftovers from “dinner”. I thought that was cool when I was a kid, because our family had “lunch” for lunch, and that was just sandwiches or soup.
I loved this particular writing because I could identify with it! Although I grew up on a farm in southern Minnesota, life there was just as you experienced as a kid! Breakfast, dinner, supper. No lunch!! Eating in a restaurant was not done with 5 kids in the family. When we traveled we went by the grocery store for a ring of bologna and sweet rolls. This was eaten as we sped (?) along in what by today’s standards was a small car. All five of the kids piled in the back seat. Being the youngest I always had to sit on someone’s bony knees! Thanks for the memories Cheryl! We are enjoying you book also!!