Today’s exercise is to go to a new place that is not somewhere you usually go to write. If you are able to go to another physical place—like a coffee shop or café you have never been—go there. You could also try writing in Laundromats, libraries, public parks, museums, the lobby of a movie theatre, the post office, a church, the bar, or the mall. Get creative. I’m sure there are tons of places where you have never written.
If you cannot go to another location, try writing in a different room or part of living space. Do you ever write in the bath tub? Do you ever write in the kitchen? Do you ever write on your front porch or in the fitness center of your apartment building? Go to some place that is an “unusual” writing place.
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I decided for today’s exercise to return to a place I haven’t been in a long time. My hometown of Jerome, Idaho. I haven’t been there since 1986 or 1987. But even moreso, my memories haven’t returned to that place, outside of a spare dream every now and then that uses that setting.
After seeing a wonderful reading of memoir pieces from a group of adults taught by Val Kavanaugh, I decided to return to that place in a piece of writing. Here’s what came of it:
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The Paper Bag Lunch
My lunch “box” in junior high was the color of a toilet paper tube. Sure, my lunches in the past were decorated by the now-collectable square tin lunchboxes with my favorite heroes or celebrities in them. But that was elementary school, 4th, 5th and 6th graders. Once I got to the “big leagues” of seventh grade; however, it was time to get serious and show a more grownup version of myself. And thus, the ubiquitous brown lunch bags.
I don’t really know how I came to be a purveyor of plain lunch containers, and I’m afraid to ask. The last time I asked my mother why she made me wear those god-awful printed shirts and wide bottom jeans that liked more like a denim dress, she told me, “We wanted to get you the more popular attire (which at that time included button-up Levi 501 jeans), but you insisted on the other ones.” Argh! Those unfortunate “style” choices couldn’t be blamed on my parents, just me?
In retrospect, I think I may know how I switched to the brown bag crowd. In 5th and 6th grade, whenever my mom sent me off to school with lunch money, I would skip lunch and use that money at the Circle K or the local drug store, perusing the comic racks for the latest 20-cent adventures of Superman, Batman, or, my favorite, the Justice League of America. I recall selling old comics to classmates to save up for the must-have crossover DC-Marvel event, Superman vs. Spiderman. It was a whopping $2, which was a hefty sum for me at the time. And I was happy when I got that oversized comic. (I still have it.)
So maybe that was the secret origin of Paper Bag Lunch Man. Or maybe it was just because my mom made great lunches. With love packed into each one like a toy prize in a box of Cracker Jacks. (One of those big ones from the big boxes; not the little stickers or wash-on tattoos in the little boxes that I always got.)
I remember one traumatic day when my best friend Mark and I were walking to school and I was swinging my lunch bag as I walked with overexaggerated strides and arm raises. Somehow - I never knew how - I lost my grip on my lunch bag. It flew in slow-motion in a weird arc from my right hand, slicing like a badly hit tee shot, and into the stream that lined the road.
My lunch!
We followed the bag bobbing down the stream, looking for a spot where one of us could reach it. (I don’t know what Mark was thinking. I would imagine a grownup laughing his head off, but I think he was too nice for that.)
After a couple of blocks, and reaching the park by the hospital, we caught up to the bag. I picked it up and saw the water dripping from it. Drenched. No chance of saving it. The worst part was when I got home and told mom. She had packed TWO brownies in my lunch that day!
Anyway, I remember my lunch USUALLY included a bagged sandwich (PBJ and bologna were among my favorites), some cut veggies, a desert and a small can of apple juice. Not a little paper container or those plastic Juicy Juices like today, but one of those sturdy cans.
A few days, I would have my lunch out and a classmate would come over and have fun by smashing my bag. Whether there was something in it or not, it seemed to make him happy. But then, one day, he came over before I could take my lunch out. Smash. What he didn’t take into consideration was that my apple juice can was still in the bag. Remember, the sturdy old cans? If it was a cartoon, his hand would have turned purple, shook, and grew a couple sizes bigger as smoke blew out of his ears. As it was, I recall him grabbing his hand and walking off.
I don’t think I had to worry about him flattening my paper bag lunch after that day.
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