A Christmas Story

I went to a large elementary school in a poor neighborhood.  When I was in the 6th grade there was a boy in my class named Ray Charles whom I befriended.

Ray was not very big for his age & he lived on the worst street in this poor working class part of the city.  I was never @ his house but I imagine that he either lived with a single mother or a grandmother.  I think his family were either alcoholics or junkies.  We had both. I don't think Ray was completely neglected but he was not well cared for. He always wore the same clothes, grey work pants, a red checked flannel shirt buttoned to the top, & worn out brown laced up shoes, & white socks.  In the winter he also wore a blue zipped up thin jacket which he kept on, zipped up, even in class.

He was quiet & did not play sports or associate with the other kids. He was the kind of person that people ignored. He sat in the back of the class & never spoke up & the teacher never called on him. He seemed to just watch.

He never ate lunch. I assume he did not have the money to buy lunch & no one packed him a lunch. The school did not have free lunches.  It was 1960 & Cincinnati, Ohio.  Lunch cost 25 cents & milk was 2 cents extra. My mother gave me 27 cents every morning.

In the mornings all the kids would play & put their lunches & school books & coats on one of several big tables.  When the bell rang we would all line up according to our grade/class & attendance would be taken & we would march off, single file, to our classrooms.

After lunch I would go down to that room & I noticed that there was always 4-5 packed lunches there that had not been claimed. They would still be there after school & would thrown away. Ray was very shy & would not do anything on his own that could get him in trouble. I expect he was dealt with harshly @ home. One day just before Christmas break I suggested to Ray that we wait about 20 minutes after lunch began & go see if any of those packed lunch bags were still there. They were & we feasted on bologna & peanut butter & jelly. We hid out in the woods & shared our lunch.

We had lunch together in this fashion everyday until Christmas break.

Ray did not come back to school after the break. I guess they moved away.

I never saw him again.