Lent Day Three

Lent Log 2014
March 7, 2014
Day 3 – Fish Stick Friday. Or “Eat Your (insert adjective) Fish!” Such a good line spoken by Julia Roberts to Merle Streep in Osage County. More about dysfunctional and awkward family situations later in lent and back to Fish Stick Friday. When one mentions fish sticks, one of those flashbacks they warned us about (Jimmy Buffet) flashes. I am mentally transported back to my high school cafeteria where your lunch choices were fish sticks or bring your lunch. My dear Mother made one of the best lunches ever. Home-made pimento cheese made with Velveeta cheese, Lay’s potato chips, and her home-made chocolate chip cookies. It was so good it was stolen every Friday by Dianne J. and Pat C. and anybody else who had the opportunity to steal it. So I had to eat Frozen (insert adjective) Fish Sticks on Friday. Mama even tried packing extra sandwiches and more cookies. That only meant my lunch looked like a grocery sack and fed more people while I still ate fish sticks. Please know this was not a situation of being bullied because whoever would steal my lunch would leave lunch money in my locker. My question is this. Why did an entire, Class A, school district in rural Texas with about 300 students total in 1965 have to eat fish sticks when 99.99% of the student population was Protestant? I am pretty confident the answer lies in a bureaucrat mandate to ensure all dietary customs and mores were met. While I respect those who strictly adhere to dietary customs, whether for religious reasons or not, I wonder at the origin of such customs. I wonder if pre Martin Luther nailing the pages on the church door, the Catholic Church had an agreement with the commercial fisherman? The Vatican says, “If it walks, don’t eat it on Friday,” and everybody buys fish and the price of fish goes up. Think about it. And why Friday? Why not meatless Thursday? Or Tuesday? Perhaps Friday was when the boats arrived from a fishing expedition. Oh well. Oh! What did I have for lunch? A peanut butter and jelly sandwich.