PBN: Memoires Of A Cafeteria Band Geek

This post is part of a blog blast being put on by the Parent Bloggers Network.

The school cafeteria. It conjures up images of mystery meat, old ladies in hairnets, and food stuck in places that make you wonder how it ever got there in the first place. It ignites memories of using the "plastic spoon catapult" or making mashed potato art. It was the place where you ate lunch, played cards, and talked about anything except the classes you were taking.

In my five years of high school (when I went to high school in Ontario it was a five year program) I think I actually ate lunch in the cafeteria a total of ten times. That's not to say that there was anything wrong with the cafeteria, nor does it imply that I was not in the cafeteria. It's more a statement of how many other things were going on in our cafeteria during the lunch hour (and afterwards).

Our school had two cafeterias. One was equipped with a full-service kitchen (that served fresh-out-of-the-oven-but-slightly-undercooked chocolate chip cookies that were as addictive crack) and a small riser-style stage. The other had no hot food, but a larger stage with proper backstage areas and a greenroom. In my five years there, between the two venues, I probably performed over a hundred times, either in a band or as part of a musical.

Our concerts were all performed in the cafeteria. Twice a year, we would co-ordinate an evening of music and parents would attend and listen to the final product of all those late-night practices. The thing was, the acoustics were terrible. One wall was all glass, and despite attempts to cover it with curtains, the echo was even noticed by those individuals who could never be called audiophiles. So, our parents always thought something was "a bit off". Listening to those recordings now, I can still hear the effect of a trumpet soloist bouncing off the far glass wall.

We also did musicals in the cafeteria. Unfortunately, being a venue designed for serving food, it did not have a proper pit for the orchestra, so we (the band) were shoved over in the corner and (literally) covered with a large black fabric tarp so the audience wouldn't see us. It made it difficult to pick up the cues from the stage, given that we couldn't actually see it. One time we cut out two to three seconds before the actor did, leaving him holding his note alone (and turning a bright shade of red shortly thereafter).

No, I did not eat many meals in those cafeterias. But I did spend a lot of time there. I just spent my time doing other things. Aside from all the blunders, the time spent in those cafeterias make up some of my fondest memories of high school. In some ways, the memories are like the more traditional ones: we gathered together and spent our time doing a bunch of things that weren't part of our schooling.

Check out School Menu and its parental counterpart Family Everyday, two sites that work together with School Food Services Directors to provide and promote healthy eating and physical fitness for kids and their parents.