The Huber Ridge Riot

Do you remember what it was like to be in 5th grade? I'll bet most of you can name your best friend from 5th grade and you probably remember the name of the teacher you had a crush on. I had the world's most beautiful teacher; Miss Ontrop. Miss Ontrop bore a strong resemblance to Wonder Woman; she had the same hourglass figure and the same dark hair- 1980s hair. I miss the women’s hair styles of the 1970s and 80s; the women's hairstyles back then looked feminine and elegant. My memory could be skewed considering I was a hormone-fueled, pubescent boy, but the nostalgic part of me feels that feathering needs to make a comeback.

I met my best friend in 5th grade and we have been lifelong friends ever since. We have shared many adventures and crazy times together, as well as a love for Miss Ontrop, but the story I want to share today was a real riot.


Back when I attended Huber Ridge Elementary, a school lunch was thirty-five cents; forty-five if you wanted an extra milk. You didn’t get all the choices kids get now: a la carte, salad bar, balanced meal, vegan, paleo, lactose intolerant, low-carb, etc. You got a faded-green, Melmac, prison tray with little square depressions to plop the food into and something that usually resembled food served on it.

Most of the time the food was in a recognizable shape: pizzas, hamburgers, or maybe chili, with tater tots and a dessert; and I’m sure there were vegetables. Vegetables, the bane of children worldwide, are the easiest part of school lunch to forget about. There was corn, I know, and I seem to remember Lima beans; which I actually like, but we usually didn't give the vegetables much thought, they were ignored and we tossed them in the trash can. There was one notable exception which I'll be getting to in a moment.

Miss Ontrop would line us all up for lunch and we would obediently march down to the cafeteria, pass through the line, get our tray and our milks and sit down for a typical 5th grade lunch of verbal abuse, potty language, taunting and needling. The teasing got so bad once that I distinctly remember another boy telling me, "Oh yeah, well you live across the street from Frankenstein!" The shame and horror of such an address! The only reason I remember this verbal assault is the fact that my best friend and I were laughing so hard about it we were crying. The poor kid ended up feeling ashamed at his own choice of criticism. People paint hardened criminals in a bad light, but they're nothing compared to kids. Children fool people with their cute faces and angelic smiles, when in reality they are merciless barbarians; eager to step on the necks of the vanquished.

One day in particular we came out of the line and were walking to our tables when we saw it, right there on our trays. It looked unearthly. It was square. It was gray. It was purple. It was gray and purple. It jiggled and appeared to contain ... vegetables! It had a translucent quality, enabling you to catch glimpses of cabbage, onions, carrots and other violations of the Children’s Ingredient Convention trapped within its quivering structure. Someone; probably the lunch lady, but it could’ve been one of those secret, NSA, black ops groups, had tried to get one over on us by combining Knox gelatin with vegetables. It was obviously a twisted attempt to fool us into eating something healthy. The red cabbage had stained the bottom half of our portions purple, which then gently faded to clear gelatin at the tops of the little squares, giving them a gruesome and decidedly unappetizing appearance.

Being a cook, I have since noticed that a trend of that era was to make Jello molds of practically everything and call it a Jello salad, the irony of which is not lost on vegans. I wouldn't eat this now as an adult that likes vegetables and I find it hard to believe that someone seriously offered this monstrosity to children, but yeah, it happened.

I can only imagine the lunch lady was thinking, "Oh, they’ll love this!" She was excited that she could finally use the recipe she got from Moonbeam at Woodstock and thought it would be a huge hit with the kids. Unfortunately for her, this was before drug testing or she may have been stopped during the hiring process and avoided being tagged as The Evil Jello Lady for the rest of her life.

Fifth graders are not only a merciless lot, they are also prone to mob mentality when under extreme stress. Like being faced with food from Planet X. I don’t know who started it, but somebody said, “Boo Jello!” Then another kid said it; and another; and another, and soon it was like being at a Cleveland Browns game when the ref blows the call, minus the profanity.

“Boo Jello! ... Boo Jello! ... Boo Jello!” A chorus of more than one hundred voices cried out in unison. Our teachers had the stone faced look of prison guards during a riot at Attica. My friend, Joel and I were at that awkward age when boys can crack up about practically anything and this was even funnier than being told Frankenstein was your neighbor. We were laughing hysterically, others were laughing and chanting. Some kids began rhythmically banging their trays on the table. Teachers were getting furious. It was one of those great moments of education that public schools are known for.

This went on for several minutes until Miss Ontrop opened up a can of Wonder Woman and started yelling at us all to shut up. In her full fury, her voice easily rose over the din of several classes of kids gathered in the lunch room and combined with the ferocious look on her enraged face we all fell silent. Finally under control, we were marched back to our classroom and politely informed, “WE DON’T YELL IN THE CAFETERIA WHEN WE DON’T LIKE THE FOOD! THAT WAS OUTRAGEOUS!!!” This was the only time I saw Miss Ontrop’s face turn such a dark red, the veins popping out on her forehead with spit flying out of her mouth, and I’m glad; murderous rage takes the luster off of the boyhood crush.


We were threatened that our parents would hear about this, but I don’t think they ever did. At least I don’t remember any punishment or even a conversation with my parents about it. That seems odd, but knowing my parents they would’ve wondered why on earth they were feeding us experimental food anyway. Then the embarrassing topic might have arisen as to why the teachers couldn’t control a group of young kids and before you knew it, the public school system would have had to start explaining itself. Our public school system is having a lot of problems lately. All those public schools closing in your area? You can probably trace it back to some Jello that was served back in 1979.