General Discussion

I used to walk home for lunch every day with my friend Marthe. Marthe was from the Netherlands. She got me into the habit of stopping at the local bakery. We would stop in and buy a loaf of fresh bread. I think the bakery reminded her of something in her native country.

We would split the loaf in half and eat it on the way to our houses, which were about a block apart. On the days we bought bread, of course we did not eat much of the lunch our mothers provided. They did not seem to mind. We could have bought cookies or donuts or other goodies at the bakery, but we never did. We only bought that wonderful bread. It cost twenty-six cents a loaf. That was lunch, at least it was on the days when we had twenty-six cents between the two of us.