The girl sitting next to me, named Judy, and I had become as good a friend as any boy and girl could in kindergarten. Judy had lunches packed by who I thought must have been a sixties answer to Martha Stewart or Julia Child. Her lunches were packed to perfection, with every thing looking like it had come out of a Cooking magazine or Southern Living, perfection inside of a ten by eight inch steel box painted to represent the juvenile owners loyalty to whatever show he or she considered their favorite. Judy’s lunches had the perfect balance of sandwiches (with the rims cut off) including meat (meat in a lunch sandwich was like Ice-cream for breakfast-unheard of amongst my dude friends), cheese, lettuce and tomatoes, “Charles” chips (the fancy kind the rich folks up the street had delivered to their door) in a small lunch box sized “Charles Chips” tan-colored container, cut up fruit (either an apple or an orange skinless, sectioned and beautiful), and some sort of incredible elixir of various colors that poured from her “Archie” lunch box’s matching Thermos. The topper was the awesome cookies she’d always have. This girl had a desert in her lunch and it wasn’t included in her sandwich, like mine. This girl must be rich too, I thought. Every day I’d go home and think of how cool her mom must have been. Maybe, I thought, she lived with royalty or was friends with the Governor. I just couldn’t fathom day after day having as cool a lunch as she did every single day and no peanut butter in sight. I’d get a cool lunch every now and again, but it was reserved for field trips to the Zoo or the Cyclorama, rare occasions, but never like Judy did. She was the queen of the awesome lunch and she was still as skinny as a rail to boot, even after eating those awesome lunches. And she was my friend.
Every morning when I’d grab my two PB&Js, apple and milk offering and head out the door, Mikey and I usually raced to see who could get to the cross walk first. There was a cross walk guard, named Mrs. Fincher, and we’d always race to see who could get to her first. She was the nicest lady I had ever met, dressed in her official black Police cross-walk uniform, neatly pressed, wearing black shiny shoes and a skirt, proper for ladies back then. She and I got to where we’d talk every day with her breaking the ice at first. She was, after all, the law in those parts and I needed to stay on her good side. She’d ask me who my teacher was and what I liked as a class subject the best, and of course I’d say something stupid like “lunch and PE”. Looking back on it I’m surprised Mrs. Fincher didn’t lock me up for saying something so stupid. She would also inquire as to my lunch box and it’s contents, and I’d bust it open in the mornings and show her my meager but life supporting offering packed with speed and efficiency by my mom before she’d head out to her job. I always reflected on the incredible lunches my friend Judy had every day and sometimes I’d be downright jealous, not at Judy mind you, my relief coming by deliberating my lot in life as far as school lunches were concerned. Although I began to believe my lunch was kinda crappy, Mrs. Fincher was always nice to me when we’d discuss the issue, commenting about how many kids didn’t have lunches in other countries and I should be thankful for the one I had. She was right, of course, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to get the address of one of the kids in another country and mailing mine to them. When I’d see Mrs. Fincher on my way back home, she’d always tell me to make a muscle for her and she’d poke it like it was a delicate balloon and comment about how my lunch was making me grow stronger. That’s when I told her that I thought a cookie or two might not do me any harm either. She just laughed at me and told me to be careful running back home and she’d see me tomorrow.
One of our lunch periods, when I was busy suffering the slings and arrows of the PB&J crowd and admiring the incredible lunch that my friend Judy was eating, we got to the end of our meal and Judy, in her quiet sweet way told me she had two extra cookies and did I think I might want them. I was as dumbfounded as any kindergartener could have possibly been right then. I even remember the type of cookie they were, Danish Wedding Cookies, the kind with the powdered sugar covering a small chocolate-chip shortbread and boy were they good, and still my favorite cookie to this day. Judy was always very discreet when she gave me the cookies over the rest of that year, I guess not to embarrass me (or her). We shared cookies the next year in first grade, when we both wound up with Mrs. Russell as our teacher, and the following year with Mrs. Fussell in the second grade. We also had Mrs. Reynolds in the third grade together and Judy would always bring me two cookies in her lunch, like clockwork, and I’d always say thank you like it was a new gift. I’d see Mrs. Fincher every day at the cross walk and tell her I had a friend that gave me two cookies that day and she’d just smile. That was in 1968.
When school began in 1968-69, everything had changed. When I walked to the cross walk to see Mrs. Fincher, she was not there. I would sometimes leave early and run down to the intersection to see of she might come back by to see me just one more time but it was not to be. I really liked Mrs. Fincher and looked forward to her daily encouragements before and after school. When I went to school, I also didn’t see my friend Judy anywhere and I had finally figured out that she had moved away. I will confess to looking forward to the cookies, but I also was going to miss Judy too. She was my friend and I liked her as much as any kid could like a girl and it not be a guy’s girlfriend or sister. OK, girlfriend…I was forced into liking my sister out of guilt. It wasn’t just the cookies, it was the fact that Judy gave me the cookies…she gave them to me. In a confusing time of war and hippies and unrest, it was a kind gesture and I recognized it as such. A year later, my family moved away from the city of Atlanta to escape the violence of segregation and race wars after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. We made our home in a town twenty miles west of the big city and a million miles away from the troubles living inside its borders brought.
It was my senior year at Lithia Springs High School, ten years later and a whole lot of teachers and friends, and I was ready to make my escape to college after my last year of high school football was concluded. I was popular student back then for some reason, but like every kid I knew had an insecure streak a mile wide I hid behind sports and girlfriends. I am proud to say that I was not a mean person to anyone, a lesson taught to me by my dad and mom and one I dare not break. I was walking down the “Senior” hall when she caught my eye on the first day of school my senior year when we were trying to figure out where all our classes were located. Many a thing about a person can change over the years, but not the eyes. I was lost in thought when we passed in the crowded hallway, but when I saw her familiar blue eyes, I knew that must be Judy! I think I circled around again so I could get one more look and sure enough, I was looking at my childhood friend. I walked over to her and asked her “Judy, is that you?” and she looked me in the eye and said “yes”. I think we talked until the bell rung, walking towards our classes and to my surprise, we had the same class and of course, assigned seats. Our teacher began calling our names and to my surprise he called out “Judy”…”Judy Fincher”…
“Here” I heard my old friend say.
I waited until after class and asked Judy the question that was on my mind, and that was what her Mom did when we were in Kindergarten. She told me that her mom was Mrs. Fincher, the cross walk guard. I was so happy I think I might have hollered if it wouldn’t have disturbed the force as far as being considered “Cool” was concerned. I asked Judy to please tell her Mom how much I thought of her back then and how much she meant to me as a little kid. Judy told me that my conversations with her mom at the cross walk was when she’d pack two extra cookies in Judy’s lunch for me. I asked her to please make sure her mom knew how much it meant to the little kid back then and the big kid standing in front of her. I’ve never forgotten her or Judy’s kindness to me. Judy could have given them to anyone she wanted, but her mom asked to give them to me, and she did.
We graduated in 1978 and somehow we managed to lose contact like so many people do when their lives and kids and husbands and wives and who is the most right or the most wrong became more important than what friends meant and remembering that getting along with your fellow-man was the most important business any man could undertake. I can say now that Judy and I had a conversation the other day via Facebook, where we reconnected after 32 years of graduation and raising kids. It was a sad conversation, unfortunately, and it revolved around Judy’s decision of whether or not to place her mom in a nursing home due to Alzheimer’s. We talked about God and his mercy and I assured her that God was not mad at her for any reason.
I hope and pray that somewhere in some small corner, in a locked closet, sitting in a small box on some long ago dusty shelf in Mrs. Fincher’s mind, now ravaged by that terrible disease, she know’s that her two cookies were the first kindness shown me by someone not in my family. It was and still is a huge lesson for me and one I have passed on to my own children.
I’ll never forget you Mrs. Fincher, or you either Judy.
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