Pomegranetes in My Lunchbox

The red plaid lunch box was the ubuiquitous accessory for little girls in the mid to late 1950's. Mine went with me to school in Tropic Utah most days. Tropic is a tiny town in the valley below Bryce Canyon Utah, one of a triad. The others were Henryville and Cannonville. My dad was ranger at Bryce, and a school bus took us between the park and the school via a dirt road that traversed a perilous feeling switchback road down the cliff face of our high plateau into the warmer (tropic) valley below.
Normally the lunchbox held a waxed paper wrapped sandwich of some sort, bolognae, tuna or peanut butter on Wonder bread, some Lays Potato chips, a home-made cookie, and healthy extras like carrot sticks or an apple. A nickel taped to the lid was for a carton of milk that tasted of wax and cardboard when drunk from the folded out spout. Sometimes though, my red plaid lunch box went home with more exotic contents than it came with.

Once a week at a certain time of the year those of us who could talk our parents into letting us have an extra nickel could go to the back door of the kitchen during lunch recess for an extra treat. We would watch for the produce delilvery truck to arrive and race back with our nickels to buy pomegranetes. They were a nickel each, so we would all come away with one of the heavy round leathery skinned fruits.

The fun then was getting them open, since none of us were allowed to carry pocket knives. The trick was to throw the fruit repeatedly on the sidewalk in front of the school until they cracked open. Then we could pry the tart-sweet ruby seeds out in clumps and devour them. When the bell rang to end lunch recess, we trooped in with our mouths and hands stained red, carrying what was left of our juicy treasures-usually about half the fruit. These would be secreted in our lunch boxes and go home with us to be finished after school or brought the next day in our lunches.

I can still feel the delight of sitting cross-legged on the grass with the sun warming my hair giggling with my friends while we burst the juicy seeds between our teeth, and the pleasure of saving away the remainder, like a ruby trove in my plaid lunch box.