Friday Flashback, Back to School Edition

I've heard and read many going on with absolute rapture about the annual excursion to buy SCHOOL SUPPLIES. I can understand that feeling now, but as a kid, nope. We never did. There was no supply list, no required brand of coloured pencils, sharpeners, or glue sticks. I don't think glue sticks even existed! We didn't even carry backpacks. I had a book bag (homemade), my brothers had book straps. We showed up at school on the first day with our lunch box and our tabula rasa, and got busy. We were issued 2 pencils, an eraser, and a notebook for each class, and that was it. The pencils and erasers had to make it until Christmas, the notebooks until June. We got an 10 pack of Laurentian pencil crayons and when they were gone, so was our ability to colour. At home we had a big shoe box of broken crayons. Come to think of it, everywhere had a shoe box of broken crayons - Sunday School, Brownies, Pioneer Girls, even school. I don't remember ever getting fresh, new Crayolas, though I'm sure I must have. I do remember my sister getting the 64 pack with the built in sharpener and being supremely jealous.

I remember one birthday, I must have been 8 or 9, my present was a trip to Steadman's, the 5 & Dime in Waterford, for "whatever I wanted." I'm sure there was a dollar limit, but I don't remember that part. I remember getting markers, and paints, and construction paper. Mine! All mine! That was the extent of my childhood school shopping, and it wasn't in September.

Now, however, I know that feeling. It's the excited prospect of an hour in Staples, poring over the new DayRunner inserts, the thrill of sharpening a whole box of Ticonderoga #2s, the satisfaction of knowing that if I need to keep an inch and a half of paper together, I have just the right binder clip. ;o)