Wait. WHAT'S the secret ingredient in my Skippy?

My teachers were hippies, wanna-be hippies, and recovering addicts. The actual hippies called us “little dudes” in a joyful way—of course—and slowly glided through life in a delighted haze of discovery that was pretty fun for a little kid. They drove Volkswagon buses and beetles and wore personality-asserting belts—macramed, Rolling Stones belt buckles, chain link, cowboy. We’d skip off with ‘em to find math in nature, they taught us yoga, they told us to “mellow out” when hissy fits and fisticuffs broke out—that kinda stuff, along with readin’, writin’, ‘rithmatic. It was all, y'know, "cool". Some of us took to wearing little peasant blouses and whatnot. The only thing that scarred me permanently was the mandatory daily “sharing circle,” during which I usually tried to hide in the corner reading “Asterix and Obelix.” (NOTE: Many years later, when I was deeply entrenched in corporate America, I found that the organizational consultants who are paid $150/hour to come in and “fix things”—a much higher salary, it is to be noted, than my earnest hippie teachers—ALSO love to force people to engage in “sharing circles.” No Asterix and Obelix” books were available. More’s the pity.)

The wanna-be hippies tried to be groovy, bless ‘em—like central casting beatniks on an episode of Dragnet—but their smell (aqua-velva, not patchouli) and crisply ironed slacks always gave them away. For some reason unclear to me at that time—although now I believe it had to do with dealing with kids without the benefit of smoking a buffering joint before work—they seemed more tense. Beyond tense were the trembling, skittish recovering addicts who were teacher’s aides and playground monitors. Usually related to a superintendent or an assistant superintendent, they spent their work time huddled in a remote corner, Styrofoam coffee cup clenched in a shaking hand, staring at us in horror and, doubtless, watching monsters crawl out of our heads. I asked my grandmother about one once, and she darkly muttered: “That’s why you should not smoke the drugs. You’ll jump off a building or end up like that.”

But. I. Digress.

“Reeve,” a fairly tense wanna-be hippie with an extremely high-maintenance handlebar moustache—his eye tic flared up when Billy Demers mocked said moustache by pasting one on himself with construction paper—taught us social studies/history, and one day he told us allllllllll about food safety. Too much about food safety. It was the “Scared Straight” of eating. “I worked in a factory once one summer,” he began, “and I saw things noooobody here would want to see…” His voice was scary and deep. His handlebar moustache bristled with significance. If we’d been squatting around a campfire he would have held a flashlight under his chin to “make the spooky face.” “My job,” he continued, “was to kill the rats that ran in and over the food piles in the factory.” He paused. “Yes. THAT’S right. IN and OVER the food piles that go into the food that all of you and your moms and dads and brothers and sisters eat.” His voice rose, “I killed MOST of them,” he said, “but of course, SOME of them got into the food. And, the federal government allows a certain amount of rat parts to be in such foods as peanut butter and insect nests to be in other items. If there were really truth in advertising, your jar of Skippy would have ‘rat skulls’ on the label.” Then, he handed us all copies of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” and told us “Ladies and gentleman, I am about to blow your minds.”

My grandmother became very angry with Reeve because I pretty much didn’t eat for a week during the food safety unit—just an astronaut food stick every now and then and some candy because I determined these to be the safest food groups. While it prob’ly did me good—I was a chubby little heifer—as a grandmother, she was concerned. Plus, I think she got fed up, so to speak, with me grimly repeating Reeve’s “food safety unit catchphrase”: “You never know what lurks beneath the surface. Never assume you know. YOU DON’T KNOW” as I hovered over her in the kitchen as she was trying to make supper. Eventually, she started replying, “I DO TOO, know. It is macaroni and cheese that I made with macaroni and cheese. And applesauce—that I made from apples, sugar, and cinnamon. That teacher isn’t the ruler of the world, you know.”

Eventually, we finished the unit. And, I apparently willed myself to forget everything I learned. If I hadn’t, what would I be eating today? Hydroponically-grown lettuce and the dew from grass grown in a very special part of I don’t even know where would be pristine enough? The whole “peanut product scandal” of ought nine has reminded me of Reeve, his factory rat-killing duties, truth in labeling, and the somewhat lackluster efforts of the FDA (here is more than you want to know and please don’t read it http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dalbook.html). Any day of the week, peanut butter is still allowed to have some “special ingredients.” And, even amidst all of the pricey “Organicing” and “Whole Foodsing” of America, a buncha people got sickened and killed by…smooshed peanuts?

“Food. Safety.” Huh. Color me cynical about food safety—again—but from a decades different vantage point of “Oh, well, something’s gonna kill me, might be this sandwich, might be that bus.”

*On a whole ‘nother topic, I read a nutritionist’s advice re: how to eat economically and healthfully in the paper last week (supper for less than $2.00! Guess what! Beans—what a shocker!). She said that people should eat “fruits and vegetables from cans,” because they were most healthful. Holy cow! All my life, it has been the other way around. I am pretty sure that advice for canning your own foods and Victory Gardens will be in next month’s paper. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that I’m increasingly reminded of my grandmother’s stories of the Depression—a feeling that was reinforced when I read yesterday that more people are going to the movies now. MY PREDICTION: Hollywood musicals are finally gonna make their comeback.