A version of this story was printed in the Elburn Herald in June 2016.

In l967, I went to third grade in Sugar Grove. My family lived on the east side of Ashe Road. The kids growing up on the other side of Ashe went to Big Rock School.

At the same time every morning, our buses met and turned in opposite directions. The kids in those windows looked like foreigners to me, heading off to some far away land. I was sure nothing good happened on that side of Ashe Road.

But at the end of my third-grade year, my parents built a house just down the road a bit, but far enough to drop me headfirst into the Big Rock School District.

“I am a Sugar Grove girl,” I wailed to my mom. “This is never going to work.” All summer I stomped, pleaded, and howled at the moon. But no matter, that fall, I boarded the bus that went the wrong way, sat next to a nameless girl with brown hair, and watched my former bus make its merry turn.

When we arrived and the bell rang, the kids raced to their classrooms while the principal showed me around. Mr. Beels was older than my Sugar Grove principal. He shuffled. The school was older too. Its floors creaked. This was never going to work.

Mr. Beels introduced me to the lunch ladies and told me they were making bunsteads for lunch.

“The students love them,” he said. But I had never heard of a bunstead. Who were these people? This was never going to work.

As we approached the fourth-grade classroom, Mr. Beels told me his granddaughter was in my class. Her name was Debbie Lee, but I soon learned she went by Lee Butt. Everyone was in their assigned seat. I creaked all the way to mine.

Mrs. Alta Larson was our teacher. Each morning, she led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Below the flag, she’d hung a picture of Michael P. Finley, a 20-year-old Marine from Big Rock, who was fighting in the Vietnam War at the time. Mrs. Larson mentioned him often; we loved to hear about him. He was the closest I’d come to knowing a real hero.

As the year went on, we all grew to really like Mrs. Larson, but Mike McCrea, the tallest boy in our class, did most of all. At the end of each day, he gave her a kiss on the cheek before he got on the bus. Some of the kids teased him, but he said, “Why not, she’s a nice lady.”

The bunsteads at lunch that first day were a lot better than I thought they would be. The recipe was Mrs. Scott’s. She was one of the lunch ladies. It came wrapped in foil, like my own little treasure chest I got to open. Inside was a soft hot dog bun stuffed with hot tuna fish, boiled eggs, and gooey cheese.

The girl with brown hair I sat by on the bus that first morning was Sara Moody. She went by Moo Cow and was also in my class. We sat together on the way home that day and many after that.

I don’t know the moment when I became a Big Rock girl, but by the end of the school year, I was. Maybe it was the day Lee Butt laughed so hard at lunch that a noodle came out her nose. I would not have missed that for the world.

Or maybe it was all the times the lunch ladies made those heavenly bunsteads.

But if I had to choose one, it would be the day Mr. Beels shuffled sadly in and told our class that Lance Cpl. Michael P. Finley had been killed in action. I had never met him, but he was a part of me. And, after all these years, he still is.

Ten years after high school, Mike McCrea joined the volunteer fire department. The rescue team was called to an address where an elderly lady had passed away. It was Mrs. Larson. Mike held her hand as he helped carry her from her home.

I’ve stayed close with my Big Rock gang. Moo Cow died of liver cancer and Lee Butt and I flew to Colorado for her funeral. I gave her eulogy; my son named his oldest daughter after her.

Over the years I had tried to make Mrs. Scott’s bunsteads from memory, but they were never right. I googled them and was surprised that recipes for them even existed. I thought it was a just a Big Rock thing. But they weren’t as good either.

A few years ago, a friend of mine found the official Roberta Scott recipe for bunsteads, and I am happy to share it with you.

They are still divine.

Next time I will be writing about Lance Cpl. Michael P. Finley.

Roberta Scott’s Bunsteads

¼ lb American Cheese, chopped

1 large can water packed tuna, drained

2 tablespoons chopped onion

2 tablespoons pickle relish

2 hard boil eggs, chopped

½ cup mayonnaise

6 hot dog buns (buttered)

Mix all ingredients together and fill each hot dog bun. Wrap individually in foil and heat 30 minutes in 250-degree oven.

• Do you have a special recipe with a story to tell? I would love to write about it. Email me at Janetlagerloef@gmail.com.