Lunch Ladies

My Grandma was a cafeteria lady at my elementary school. Occasionally, I would sleep over at her house on a school night, and she and I would ride to school in the lunch lady carpool. My Grandma never learned how to drive. It was too far for her to walk to the elementary school, so everyday she rode with Mollie, the head cafeteria lady. Mollie lived near Grandma. Mollie wore glasses and had grayish-black hair that she wore straight on top and curly on the sides. She drove a big, boxy car. I believe it was tan, maybe with a dark brown top.
Grandma and I sat in the back on a bench seat. This was in the 1970s, so we didn't worry about seatbelts. I usually sat in Grandma's lap. Vicey, another lunch lady, sat in the front passenger seat; and Mollie's two grown daughters, Glenda and Linda, sat in the back with Grandma and me. They also worked in the cafeteria.
We arrived at school before most of the other teachers and children were awake. Mollie parked the car, and we all piled out. Mollie had a key to the back kitchen entrance. It was quiet except for the hum of the overhead lights. Mollie and Vicey and Glenda and Linda and Grandma got to work. They put on their smocks and hairnets; and Grandma made biscuits, rolling out the dough and cutting it with the little round biscuit cutter. She set the biscuits on the huge metal baking pans and fed the pans into the gaping mouth of the industrial-sized oven. Glenda and Linda set out the little milk cartons, red and white for whole milk, brown and white for chocolate, and sometimes pink and white for strawberry. Vicey sprayed out the sink with a faucet attached to a long winding hose while Mollie scrubbed and peeled potatoes.
I know it must have been noisy in that big school kitchen with pots and pans banging about and water bubbling to a boil and Grandma and Mollie chatting and Glenda and Linda laughing and Vicey commenting every once in a while. I know it must have been noisy; but I only remember the hum of the overhead lights and the faint squeak of their sensible soft-soled shoes as they bustled about making breakfast.

My Grandma

with freckled, floury fingers

that smelled of celery

and perfumed powder

was a cafeteria lady

at my elementary school.

 

She wore

a black hair net

on her red-brown curls

and handed me a carton of milk

everyday;

 

And on the Friday nights

when I slept over

she'd serve

pigs in a blanket,

peanut butter bars,

and salty popcorn in metal bowls;

 

and her hands

were always kneading...

needing

it seemed to me

to shape the dough for hundreds of strangers' children

to shape me.