Food Court Philosophy

My seventh grade year, I had just returned to Christ is King, my small, private, christian school, after three years of homeschooling. Our principal and Bible teacher was a short, stocky, and vivacious Filipino man named Raul. As a function of the Bible class, he sequestered the top three grades at our school (7th - 9th grades), whom he called "forerunners" and formed a book club, among other things. Every Wednesday, instead of getting a packed lunch, we got money to go to the food court at the mall. There we would scootch the tables into a shape that fit us all, and disperse to purchase food. There was a dull roar that accompanied our discussion after we had all eaten. Being a slow eater, I was forced to listen to the first part of the discussion with my mouth full of some salty, greasy staple of fast food. We usually sat right next to the arcade, which was frequently a distraction. It had completely clear windows that offered a perfect view of a character on the side of one of the consoles whom my friend Lewis dubbed "steroid man". That was also back in the days when Runza used to give away free balloons, so I started getting them just to suck the helium and make my voice sound funny.

Overall it turned out to be a hit, though. The book we were assigned was called "The Crimson Tapestry" and it combined the vocabulary of a grad student in linguistics with the plot line and dialog of a horny adolescent. It remains one of my favorite books, and the conversations we had about it were revolutionary to me. Raul was a very passionate and influential man. He was constantly challenging us, especially the boys, in our thinking and worshiping habits. In every function he was involved in at the school, he called for a higher standard of maturity. To this day the seventh grade is one I point to as the one in which I grew up the most, and that primarily because of Raul.