A school trip in the 1970s
"I'm going to Kentucky!", I said with enthusiasm.
"Have a nice trip", my Grade 3 teacher said with much less enthusiasm.
She was sitting at her desk, rifling through papers. She'd heard this before and was decidedly uninterested in my announcement.
I waited for her eyes to look at mine so I could hand her my paperwork. The paperwork was key to this process and I needed to make sure she received it.
These were the rules.
I could feel my smile start to fade as I waited. She was preoccupied and showed little interest in my big adventure.
I stared up at her horn-rimmed glasses waiting for eye contact. Each arm of the horns was tied to a little gold chain that dangled down onto the doily collar of her black dress. The chain went around the back of her neck, under her curly grey hair.
That chain was a sign you were old, I thought to myself. My grandmother had that chain. I continued to stare up at her while standing at the giant oak desk in front of the class.
She eventually looked down at me and held out her hand. The corner of her mouth curled under with disinterest. Her eyes were dark and stern.
Mean, almost.
She unfolded the paperwork, glanced at it and put it on her desk without a word. She looked away. That was my signal.
I was free to go.
I left the room and started my journey across the three classroom building. The marble floors gleamed with a fresh clean scent. As I passed one room I could hear children singing in French. The sounds of a teacher yelling from another class made me cringe. I picked up my pace. I walked all the way down the short hall and out the big front doors of the little school.
There was no one around.
I crossed the yard and made my way down the driveway, to the large opening in the page wire fence that flowed out into the world. In front of me was a road that connected to the main thoroughfare. To my right were the onramps for the 401, Canada's busiest highway.
I looked both ways, as firmly instructed by my parents. Then I made my way across the road and into the parking lot facing the school. Commuters and travellers were filling their cars with gasoline and cradling fried food bags in their arms like greasy babies. It smelled so different over here...gasoline, oil, cigarette smoke. My brain raced with excitement.
I approached the building beyond the gas pumps and walked up to the front door.
I reached up for the handle, opened the door and stepped in. I approached the counter and looked up at the teenager in a clean white costume and pointy hat. He glared down at me. He was doing a lousy job hiding his disgust.
My nerves kicked in.
I forced a confident smile as I reached into my pocket and pulled out a crisp two dollar bill. I looked down to confirm the bill was in fact what I felt in my hand. Like there was anything else in my pockets.
I handed the older kid my bill and placed my order. He grunted in response before pressing buttons on a machine that looked like a big typewriter. A little bell went off and a drawer opened, hitting him in the stomach. He put my cash in the drawer and rooted around in there. He then plunked down some change in front of me and the sound of the coins rattled as they hit the counter. He closed the drawer.
He turned away and I gathered the coins. I watched him reach for a box on a shiny metal shelf behind him that glowed under red lights. He cradled the box with one hand as he slid it into a bag. He rolled down the top of the the large brown paper bag and handed it to me over the counter.
My heart raced. Colonel Sanders smiled down at me from the side of the bag as I reached for it.
I could feel the warmth against my arms and chest as I held the bag tightly. The smell of fried chicken and french fries consumed me.
I turned away with my treasure and ran back to school as the lunch bells rang.
*Edit*: Thank you so much to Sherry Thompson for reaching out and providing me with an ACTUAL photo of the Kentucky Fried Chicken at the Lancaster Ontario exit off the 401. I was trying to remember what the gas station was, so its cool to see that it was in fact a Texaco, which really takes me back. My school was to the left of this photo, across the road: