It was the late 1960s on my grandma and grandpa’s farm in North Todd County, Kentucky. Back then, every day seemed bigger than life, filled with chores to do, fields to explore, and a hundred ways for kids to get into trouble before sundown.
On one particular morning, Grandma was packing a lunch for herself and my older sister Donna. She had promised Donna that if she’d help chop out tobacco for the day, they’d have a nice picnic under the big oak tree when the work was halfway done. So Grandma fixed up two sandwiches—probably bologna and mayonnaise, the official farm lunch of the era—two cold RC Colas in a dented metal cooler, and two shiny red apples. And there it was: the Charles Chips can, that yellowish-beige tin of salty temptation, about a quarter full but somehow still irresistible.
My sister Karen and I were hanging around the yard, pretending to mind our own business. But when Grandma and Donna came out of the house carrying that cooler and chip can, it was like a spotlight beamed down from heaven. It wasn’t just lunch—it was treasure.
They gave us a wave and headed toward the tobacco patch, not suspecting for a second that they were going to be trailed by two of the most cunning snack bandits in Todd County history. The second they disappeared past the garden, Karen and I locked eyes. We didn’t even have to say it: We’re gonna steal that lunch.
A couple of hours later, we started our mission on the far end of the cornfield, crouched low and feeling like Navy SEALs on a top-secret operation—except with a little more dirt on our knees and a lot less actual training, plus a healthy fear of getting our behinds tanned. Every time the corn leaves rustled, I was sure we were busted, but nobody came running with a hoe to swat us away. We crawled on our hands and knees, our hearts thumping so loud I figured Grandma could hear them all the way in the tobacco rows.
Finally, we reached the edge where the oak tree stood, all big and shady, with our prize waiting underneath like it was begging to be liberated. That Charles Chips can looked about ten times shinier than it did that morning. The cooler practically glowed.
We waited until Grandma and Donna were at the far end of the row with their backs turned, then we sprinted like a couple of jackrabbits running from a coyote. I grabbed the chips, Karen snatched the cooler, and we tore back through the corn without looking behind us.
We made it to the edge of the corn, gasping for breath, and cracked open the can like it was a safe full of gold. We stuffed chips into our mouths by the handful and washed them down with the RCs, feeling like the kings of all mischief. Then we opened up the sandwiches and ate every crumb, bologna and all, right down to the last crust. They tasted even better just because they weren’t ours.
And for some reason—maybe guilt, maybe just kid logic—we each took one careful bite out of an apple and then put them back in the cooler, as if nobody would ever notice two half-moon bites staring up from the top.
And here’s the part where our great criminal enterprise went from “brilliant” to “pretty dumb.” After we finished, we decided we’d better put everything back under the tree exactly the way we’d found it—like maybe Grandma would think the sandwiches just evaporated. So we crept back across the gauntlet, set the chip can and the cooler right where they’d been, and in a flash we were back in the cornfield, feeling mighty proud of our cleverness.
When we got back to the house, Mama was sitting on the front porch shelling butter beans. I don’t know why, but we blurted out the whole story—probably thinking she’d admire our bravery. She laughed so hard she nearly fell off her chair, but when she finally caught her breath, she said, “Well, you two are gonna wish you’d stayed in that corn when Grandma gets home. She’ll tan your hides with that flyswatter.”
We spent the next hour peeking around the corner of the house like a couple of convicts waiting for the sheriff. Sure enough, here came Grandma, stomping up from the field, mad as a wet hen, her bonnet flapping behind her. We didn’t wait around for negotiations. We scrambled under the beds, trying to disappear into the floorboards.
Through the window, we could hear Grandma demanding, “Where are them young’uns?”
Mama, bless her, managed to keep a straight face. “I don’t know,” she said. “Last I saw them, they were headed over to swing on the grapevine.”
Grandma stood there fuming, probably weighing her options, but after a minute she just sighed, went back to the kitchen, and fixed two more sandwiches. She stomped back down to the oak tree to have what was left of her picnic, probably muttering about ungrateful children the whole way.
It was a long afternoon for Karen and me. We knew we were living on borrowed time. When Grandma finally came back, she’d cooled off enough not to swing the flyswatter, but she sure let us have it with a scolding we never forgot, and Donna didn’t speak to us for a week.
That was the end of the Great Lunch Heist. We never tried to steal a picnic again—but for one glorious day, we were legends in our own minds.