The Lunch Room

I hear people talking about getting junk foods for lunch at school and it brought back so many happy memories of my lunch room at Jay.
We did not have junk food. We had nutritious, hot, homemade meals every day and the lunch ladies knew us all by name and smiled when they gave us our food. It always smelled so delicious to me and my mouth was watering by the time It got to be my turn, to have my meal placed on my separated tray.

I had to do most of the cooking at home and it was a treat for me to have someone else cook. They fixed things I did not know how to fix and they made wonderful desserts. I wish I could list all of the wonderful meals but I am going to talk about the dessert that I loved so much. It was a yellow cake with strawberry frosting.. Home made strawberry frosting and homemade cake and it was sooooo good. When I would see it on the trays as we stood in line, I would begin to taste it. I never had anything like that at home or a salad or fresh fruit most of the time.

The Lunch meal was an important meal to me. It cost 25 cents a day and a nickel if you wanted an extra milk, which I did sometimes. If someone did not have money for an extra milk, I would still see them get one. The lunch ladies would not let anyone go without lunch or milk if they needed it.

You paid for your meal at the end of the line right before you went into the cafeteria line. When your 25 cents was paid, you went into the actual place where you could see the food. Large pan after pan of delicious smelling food. Casseroles, homemade bread, salads of fruit and greens, and those wonderful desserts. I am so glad that Daddy thought it was important for me to have a hot cooked meal at lunch. It gave me a much needed break from my job and it made me feel more a part of the school experience.

One of the best things about the lunch room were the lines. This is where you could see and hear everything that goes on inside the school and outside the school. I was a quiet girl, not very talkative except to my two friends, and I heard a LOT of stuff in that long line. It usually took about 10 minutes to get through the line and in that time I heard about where the Rolling Stones were playing and who went back stage to be with the band after, the chatter about the first black kid that tried to segregate our school and what a tragedy that was a few days later or so I heard, and I learned to admire one person who I never met but watched each day.

She did not have full formed arms and hands. I would not learn what this was called until I became a Nurse and knew what Thalidomide babies were. She did not know who I was and I did not know who she was but I knew her from seeing how she overcame something that most of us would cry about every day. I thought she was amazing and I never told her. She held her head high, walked and talked and laughed and balanced every thing so well. I was considered a person without any disability but she was the one without any disability. I would watch her in line as I sat at my table, alone a lot of the time, and I admired her so much. I would smile at her and if she ever looked at me, she would smile at me. I wish I knew her name so that I could tell her what a silent impact she had on my life. Wolfe comes to mind but that may be wrong. I often looked around at the kids who were worried about clothes, shoes, a car and then look at her thinking about all of the things she had to think about each day and it kept me grounded on important things in my life. Thank you unknown Jay High School girl...

I remember when one girl became pregnant in high school and she disappeared. You did not go to school pregnant in that day and I don't know if any schooling continued for her. You were ostracized and alone. I feel for her today.

I feel for that black kid that tried to come to our school. I heard he was stabbed on the second or third day that he was there but that could be false. All I know is that he was only in school a day or two and then he was gone and we never had another kid of color come to our school while I was there. It was still the old South in the 50's and 60's. I'm sure that has changed today.

The lunch room was the place where we had our standardized tests also. They were fairly easy for me because I was able to read well. We had to bring two no. 2 pencils to the tests and they were timed. The entire lunch room would be filled with each grade as we tested. It was hard for me to concentrate on the task at hand because I was thinking about the meal I was going to have in a little while in the same room. lol...

Kids today will not have the variety of home made meals that we had available. For a small school in a rural community, we sure had it going on over many other schools. Our education was stellar and our experience was also.

I am thankful for the lunch ladies. Many of them were like surrogate Mothers for this lil girl that did not have a Mother at home. They will never know what an important role they played in my life, but they sure did....

Gloria Peacock Kimmel Feb 2016

Postscript: I looked up the Elementary lunch menu for Feb and was pleasantly surprised to see that good meals are still being cooked at Jay. I think that is an important thing that distinguishes Jay from other schools. Thank you Jay and those amazing Lunch Ladies.

Jay Elementary | Official Lunch Menus & Meal Information

Check out what's for lunch today at Jay Elementary ! The official portal for detailed menus, nutritional analysis, and more for Santa Rosa District.

SANTAROSA.NUTRISLICE.COM

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Gloria Peacock Kimmel The daughter of the Lunch room manager Mrs. Lou Leonard kindly shared her memories and Carole Magaha Barnes shared a photograph of the 1960 Lunch Ladies. It was sure wonderful to put names to faces in my memory.
Left to right....Thelma Bryant, Sue Corsey, Mattie Maddox, Mattie Harrison, Artie Lou Leonard, (aka Moma Lou!), Mattie Carden, Lois Bauldree, and Mary Polk. Mrs Lacey & Mrs Wyche came on board later. Mrs. Bryant, Mrs Polk, & Mrs. Harrison left before Mother retired. 

Christmas At The Alger Sullivan Company Party.. Century, Fl..

Christmas at Alger Sullivan Company
One of the most exciting things to happen to me at Christmas time was getting a gift from Santa Claus at the Alger Sullivan Company Christmas Party.

It was always right before Christmas and every child whose parent worked for the company received a gift. They were not just cheap toys either, but dolls, tricycles, little cars, toy guns, and games of that day. No socks or shoes or clothes or books, Just toys, toys and more toys. Or at least that is the way I remember it. lol

Daddy would tell us we are going to the Christmas party and we would all get into our Sunday "go to meeting" dresses and lil suits for the boys. I don't remember there being a cut off age for a gift. Every child that had a parent working for the company got something.

We did not get much and Christmas with the company was amazing. It was held in this huge hall or auditorium and you got to see children you had never seen before and would not see again until the next year. We all went into a really large room and saw a huge tree and a big man in a red suit sitting beside it, in a big chair. He had helpers that brought the gifts to him and they had names on them.
One of the helpers would hand him a gift and he would talk into the microphone and call a name..... Jeffrey Jones and we would wait until Jeffrey came up.... Jimmy King .... And we would wait until Jimmy came up..Carla Lewis ... And we would wait, sitting on the floor with children as far as you could see. ( These are made up names because to tell you the truth, I listened for Peacock and tuned every thing else out. lol) Name after name, child after child, a hundred children later and finally the Peacocks were being called.. Clifton.. Ernest.. Donna....Gloria.. Finally me.. And I would get up off the floor, smooth my dress and petticoat and march right up to that man in red as brave as you pleased, to pick up my gift. You waited until every child had a gift and then it was mayhem.. Santa would say into the Microphone.. " Did every one get a gift?" and then try to hear the response above the giggles and sharing of the gifts between the children. "Look what I got. Isn't she beautiful?" Or my brother saying, " look at this b b gun." It was the most fun in a evening that I could ever remember having because it was something different than chores and school.

I will never forget those days and the toys that came to live with me. The slinky that I played with til it was a bent mess, the little dolly sized stove that had a pan and a door that would open for you to cook, the tops that twirled and made music the faster it twirled, the tricycle, the many little tea sets, telephones, stuffed animals, pull toys, and dolls ( although I don't remember getting one) I only remember the one that Daddy got me when I was five that I saw in the window in Flomaton and wanted so badly.

If you are a kid and had a parent that worked at Alger Sullivan company, I know that you remember this just like I do.. Merry Christmas every one..

Gloria Peacock Kimmel Christmas 2015

( The picture is borrowed from Google but we looked just like that as we awaited our gift)
Daddy with this lunch box coming home from an Alger Sullivan work day. Donna still has his lunch box.. Ernest packed it then when I got to be about 8 or 10,  I packed it every morning before he went to work. I left home at 18 and Donna packed it)

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My Daddy, the Dentist

We did not go to the Dentist when we were little or ever for that matter. Since Daddy felt he was the healer of Chicken Pox he also felt he was qualified to be a Dentist.
I still remember my first visit to his "Office". I made the mistake of telling Daddy that my tooth hurt and he said why. He then stuck his long knobby fingers in my mouth and I tasted sawdust as he started touching each tooth and as I tried to garble out that it was on the bottom front.

He finally found the tooth and moved it back and forth a couple of times as I winced and tasted blood. Then he said "come into the kitchen."

Now I did not have good experiences when Daddy said to follow him somewhere and I did not like the sound of this visit either, but I knew that there were no chickens in the kitchen and that I would not be asked to find a switch in there either, so I went willingly. I had visions of maybe an old cookie or a crust of biscuit but Daddy went over to the big white glass door-ed cupboard that contained all the medicines for the house.
He opened the drawer that had the tallow, the Mercurochrome, the Doans and Carters pill, the baby aspirin, turpentine and various other homemade remedies. He did not find what he wanted, so he went to the bottom shelves and opened the door. There he found this ball of thick coarse twine and he took it out of the drawer and went back to the Kitchen.

I had NO idea what he was doing but I dared not disobey or ask questions. Children were seen and not heard in my house and not to speak unless we were spoken too. So I waited as he kind of did a quick measure by walking from the double wall that made the transition from the dining room to the kitchen. He took the end of the twine and laid it on the floor, then he unrolled the twine to where the door was half opened in the kitchen.

I was totally intrigued by what he was doing but had no idea of why I was asked to be his assistant cause I wasn't doing anything but watching. But just when I was bored out of my mind watching him find and measure twine, his attention turned to me and he motioned me over.

He said, "open your mouth" and I was mildly curious as to what on Earth he was going to do to my mouth now. It was already sore from the initial examination and I watched him tie a slip knot in one end of the twine as he placed it on the tooth in my open mouth. I was getting a little sweaty at that point cause it was already sore and he pushed and pulled on that twine in my mouth til it was nice and tight on my tooth. Did I mention that he had huge hands? lol..

He then asked me to step over near the kitchen to the half walls leading into the dining room and I did. He came over and turned me toward the door and said "stay right here and don't move or turn around."
When he tied the other end to the door, I started to panic a little. I was smart enough to know that one end was tied to my tooth and one end was tied to the door and if anyone moved that door, MY tooth was going to hurt.

He pretended to instruct me to keep still and then quickly slammed the door shut. I felt a tug on my tooth as it pulled my head forward and then a bloody mess was in my mouth. The tooth was on the end of the twine and daddy looked pleased with himself. He made me some warm salt water and had me rinse my mouth and then he went on about his work.

I had, had my first visit to the Dentist. It was not my last visit but I knew what was to come each time he motioned for me to come into his "office".. lol.

Ps.. That may be the reason for the look on my face in this picture.. lol.

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My Passion.. Vietnam Veterans

My Lesson for us all.. Develop a passion for something in life..
I am going to tell the story so that all may remember. I do not share much of myself here as my desire is to help others find their path to healing but I am a Vietnam Vet counselor. I have done this for many years.. I did not have the degree when I was 16 and I first started bringing myself to the Men that serve our country. I visited the Veterans hospitals and held their hands while they cried and wanted to cease this thing we call life. I was 16, so young, carefree, and it brought them hope.

Fast forward to me a few years ago, still giving of myself to these special people and I really grew close to a couple of them. One was a Vet that does amazing art work to deal with the pain of being there and he does not sell them, but gives them in love. I have one of these of his first night there as a FNG and it shows him in the bunker with the Vietcong coming in to kill him. He had to make a decision to live that night and do things that none of us would ever wish too.
He lived but was tortured and arrived on my doorstep , gun in hand , ready to stop the pain. I sat on the car with the door open and my back to him, and told him that he could talk safe from any expressions that crossed my face, and he did , for hours as the tears silently streamed down my face, and after it was released, he uncocked that gun and decided to try life again. This man is responsible in large part to the War Memorial in many cities across the US. Thank you God.

The other near and dear to my heart is gone now and named William but I called him Willie. I visited him every Sunday on my day off and bought stuff I did not need weekly, for him to have money to live. I loved him and cared for him.

I was with him the day before he died and he would not let me call rescue. He was tired and so ill so I just told him I would always be near if he needed me. I went home and waited for the call which came the next day. It came and I went to console his brother and plan the funeral for my friend. I wanted him to have the Military Funeral he deserved, but could not seem to make the local Am-vets understand that he was more important than the parade they had planned for the day of his funeral.

I clawed and called and spoke to everyone in charge and was just about ready to call the friggin president, when finally they said, we will come. He had his honor guard that day, Taps played as he was laid to rest, giving his life for his country, and I was at rest knowing that we cared for another one. All of this is done for my brother, served 68-69 and returned with a Purple heart, bronze star and a hole in his heart that could never be filled, as they spit on him as he exited the plane to be on US soil. This song is my song of fixing as many of the Men and women that serve our country. To let them know we care and that we are sorry we did not welcome them home as we should have on that day.

(((((People who serve our country)))

Love, Kimmee "

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=733HYn4kJaY&feature=related

(((Michael Cousino is in the first photo and William Churchill is in the second one)

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Gloria Peacock Kimmel This is the Memorial that I did for all Veterans when I was Historian for The Town Of DePeyster NY...

Gloria Peacock Kimmel I had something on display from every war and conflict that we had engaged in since the Revolutionary War. Willie died the year the Red Sox won the World Series. He had waited all his life and died in October and they won a few days later. We gathered and listened to it with a picture of him near. I know that he knew his beloved Red Sox won that day..

My 2nd Great Grandfather George Washington McCurdy

In Memory of George Washington McCurdy served CSA Co. D 15 Fl Cavalry.. My 2nd Great Grandfather

My 3rd Great Grandfather Elijah McCurdy

In memory of my 3rd Great Grandfather Elijah M. McCurdy.. Served in the War of 1812 in 18th Regiment, US infantry
Born 1793 in Chester, South Carolina
Died 20 Feb 1876 in Century, Fl ...This date was in his Military record.

Elijah McCurdy Photograph courtesy of Leahmanda Barnes, Great Great Granddaughter of Elijah and colored by Margaret Harkness at the request of Gloria Peacock Kimmel

Remembrances Of A Child From Jay

When I was little, I went to the Jackson Theater on Saturday night. It was Segregated. The "colored" people had to watch the movie in the balcony, while the white folks sat below. I wonder if the people of that day understood that the Balcony had the best seats in the house. There is some kind of irony in that.

For the balcony goers to get to the Movie, they had to walk up the outside of the building on the rickiest set of stairs I had ever seen. I walked around to the side of the building one day because I was curious as to how the theater goers got to the balcony and I saw the stairs. I can only imagine what a slippery slidey mess it was to go up those in the rain or when there was a bit of frost out or a stiff wind. It would have scared me to death.
Sometimes the balcony goers would throw stuff down on the ones watching the movie below. Popcorn or paper but never spit. A small amount of attitude for still being relegated to the dark balcony 100 years after the War that gave them freedom, ended. I understand it better today than I did then.

I remember the music in my household. When Mama was home it was country.. Earl and Scruggs, Ernest Tubb, Jim and Jesse Reynolds and our hometown boys Sonny James and Hank Locklin. I never knew as a kid that Sonny James was a Loden cousin. He hosted the first Country Music Awards and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He produced Marie Osmond's first 3 albums and was the one to suggest she sing "Paper Roses" which became a huge #1 hit. (info from his fan website)
I saw him perform in Jay when he came to visit his cousins and he was a such a gentleman. He talked and interacted with his fans in a way that is lost today. In a time when I was watching movies in a segregated theater, he was collaborating with Nat King Cole. He was progressive and smart and almost forgotten today.

One of my favorite places to visit was Knowles? store on the way to Flomaton. I think that was the name. If not, I am hoping that someone here will remember and help me put his name down for all time. He had a Western town that was animated in his little store where you could buy candy, a coke and some sandwich fixings if you were hungry. He had a daughter about my age and they lived in a trailer near the store. I went to spend the night with her a few times. I liked her but I LOVED that Western town that moved. If you saw it today, you would be as fascinated today as I was then. It took up almost half the room in the store and was fenced off so that you could not touch it, but you could get up nice and close to see all the details. Your eyes feasted on stagecoaches moving on a track pulled by six horses, saloon doors opening and closing, gunshots and gunfights happening in the middle of the town, and saloon girls swirling and dancing to the loud music permeating your senses. People threw nickles into the town, so that Mr Knowles could keep it running and buy new pieces.
I hope that some of you got to experience this when you were little because it was magical, mesmerizing and wonderful in every way. I remember the man that put this together for all of us to enjoy also. He laughed and smiled every time anyone was delighted with his collection. I will always remember how that nourished this little girl that grew up with little laughter in my home.

There was a restaurant at the corner of the street that turned to go to Brewton that gave me my first adventure with a salad and dressing. When I got my car Donna and I would make excursions to new places, and on one of these we went out to eat. I was working at Teens Delight Restaurant in Jay and that gave me enough money to make my car payment of 58 dollars and to have money for a few extras to treat my sister. We looked at the menu that the waitress offered and both ordered Salads. The waitress had to show us each dressing because we had never seen any of them. The waitress was so sweet and let us taste several of them. We had seen a bottle of the Orange one sitting on the counter and decided that was the one. The first bite of lettuce with French dressing made me pause it was so good. Neither of us had ever eaten a salad with dressing and it made quite the impression.We ate greens of course but they were cooked and used to sop cornbread.

I still love French dressing today but it has ceased to have that tart, tangy goodness that made your mouth pucker up when it hits your tongue. lol.

You have to understand that we did not eat out a lot in restaurants like people do today. It was considered a waste of money and a luxury that we could not afford. The only other times I had eaten out was on one of Daddy's trips for Alger Sullivan company and when my sister Ruby took me to Morrisons, but that is a story for another day.

These are some of my remembrances that made an impression on a child's mind that last today. When I close my eyes I can see the images in my mind like a movie. I would love to hear about some of the movies that play in your mind.
Gloria Peacock Kimmel 11-21-2015