Schools usually have a lunch break; some students qualify for free school lunches. “I didn’t go to school (just) to eat lunch” is a popular saying, meaning that the speaker went to school to learn a few things.
“Your father…didn’t go to school just to eat his lunch” was cited in print in 1950. Baseball manager Casey Stengel (1890-1975) used the saying in 1961. Baseball manager Leo Durocher (1905-1991) included the saying in his autobiography, Nice Guys Finish Last (1975).
Google Books
The Long Discovery:
A Novel
By John Burgan
New York, NY: Farrar, Straus
1950
Pg. 176:
“Your father,” he said, “didn’t go to school just to eat his lunch. He is always in there when it comes to driving a bargain.”
Google Books
The Rag Pickers
By H. Vernor Dixon
New York, NY: D. McKay Co.
1955
Pg. 13 and Pg. 299:
“I didn’t go to school just to eat lunch.”
17 October 1961, Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, UT), “Banker Stengel ‘No Dummy’” (AP), pg. 15, col. 7:
“No bank that’s growing that fast can have a dummy, for its vice president,” he told an interviewer. “Like I say, Charles Dillon Stengel—that’s me—didn’t go to school just to eat his lunch.”
Google Books
Nice Guys Finish Last
By Leo Durocher with Ed Linn
New York, NY: SImon and Schuster
1975
Pg. 217:
I may not be a student of the Bible, but I didn’t go to school just to eat my lunch either.
Twitter
Kate
@Habbibti
“I didn’t go to school just to eat my lunch”
Things my mom says when I thank her for good advice.
5:08 PM - 30 Oct 2013
Twitter
David E. Diaz
@davidintampa
“I didn’t go to school just to eat my lunch.”-Leo Durocher-
Eddie Clarence Murray was one of the most feared and… http://fb.me/15PQ9HN0D
7:10 PM - 20 Feb 2014
Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.
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Above, Big Apple Corner at 54th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Google Maps. Stolen and missing, 2021-2024.
Above, John J. Fitz Gerald, from the Aug. 15, 1931, Binghamton (NY) Press, pg. 14.
Listen to Robert Emmerich introduce "The Big Apple," a hit song from 1937. Music written by Bob and performed by Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven with Bob on piano. Lyrics written by Buddy Bernier and sung by Edythe Wright. Audio provided by Dorothy Emmerich.
Also listen to a 1937 "The Big Apple" song by Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra. See a 1929 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald and a 1931 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald.
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