Back To School Nostalgia

Admit it: You're working now in some corporate office, air conditioner broken (or worse, way too cold in the office,) and can't stand those of your friends who are teachers and "getting ready to go back to school!" Think about it - our whole lives, up until we graduated college was on a 'quarter' or 'semester' time frame. You almost always remember your year sort of "ending" in May and "beginning" in September, sometime around Labor Day - when it was time for your edumakation.

I just want to take a moment and get a little nostalgic on yo asses. I seriously canNOT believe that the next time I'll be "getting ready for school," will be when my own children have a list of recommended school supplies. But no - we're not talking trapper keepers (remember those?) and Lisa Frank stickers...we're in a whole new ballgame now. From Ipods to cell phones -- to everything being green and on digital notebook computers...I simply can't believe it.



I LIVED for school supply shopping. I couldn't wait to pick out folders for each subject, penicils, pens, uber-geek pencil holders you'd never use, five star notebooks (the cool kids got those) and of course, trapper keepers.

The Mead Trapper Keeper was really intense. Completely state of the art, this large holder folded open and had a multitude of pockets, penholders, a plastic 3-hole binder system to hold everything together -- all complete with the adhesive choice of the decade: velcro.

Aside from school supplies, I was always so excited to get new outfits and really figure out what I was going to wear the entire first week of school. When I was younger, I really fancied little sundresses with a pair of Keds (wow, Keds were soooo cool.) As I got older, particularly freshman year of high school, I remember "baby tees" being all the hype - be it with a design or a really cheesy one word bold statement like "phat" or "sugar." And let's not forget those dreaded Doc Martens all the boys used to wear...and even worse, Mary Janes (not the cool kind) that the chickadees wore. Wow.

Yes, but I must say - as the air starts to get a bit crisp and fall outfits are being modeled by size two mannequins in the SAKS windows, I get a little upset that I won't be psyched about a trip to K-Mart for some retractable pencils and some refill 0.5" lead.