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Retro School Supplies
Hoju Koolander Posted on Aug 05, 2015 at 05:10 AM
@OldSchool80s Good call! I always associated the standard 4 color pens with my older brother who actually carried them in a pocket protector (he was going to college to be an electrical engineer). But I remember at one point owning a huge shiny purple one that had like 10 colors, which was crazy.
pikachulover Posted on Aug 04, 2015 at 08:36 PM
I just bought one of those multi color pens, a Lisa Frank one. It has a really girly design with kittens and ice cream cones.
Vaporman87 Posted on Aug 04, 2015 at 03:29 PM
@OldSchool: Oh yeah! I had forgotten all about those pens. Those were so cool back in the day. I had a few of those too. Though the only color that really got much use was black, followed by blue.
OldSchool80s Posted on Aug 04, 2015 at 01:31 PM
Picking out the perfect lunch box was so important in those early years. Then I can remember how much my Trapper Keeper meant to me. I also remember the 4-color pen (that they still make, I think) where you slide down the color that you want to use - black, blue, red, green.
Vaporman87 Posted on Aug 03, 2015 at 04:07 PM
I wonder how socially scorned they would be if we sent them to school with all the coolest stuff... from when WE were in school? They could tell them it's "retro cool" and classified as memorabilia. Hmmm.
mickyarber Posted on Aug 03, 2015 at 02:39 PM
Such a fun article! This one brings back so many memories. And you're right, your level of school supply directly affected your social standing. Parents never understood that though. To them a folder was a folder. But not to us kids. A plain green folder was surely no where near as cool as a GI Joe folder. You could be kicked out of your friend circle for that kind of social snafu. Once upon a time, all of my friends had new Trapper Keepers, while I showed up with a baby blue colored knock off. That was a tough few months of that school year.
As for the lunch boxes, the metal ones most definitely were superior to their plastic cousins. But at our school, I don't remember what grade, it became cooler to carry your lunch in a paper bag like the high school guys that it did to sport a plastic lunch box like the 1st graders.
So many memories associated with this article. You really picked a great topic to write about. Now when I take my kids back to school shopping this weekend, I'll have this article in mind and remember what it's like to have the off brand Trapper Keeper, and try not to let myself be "that" parent.
Vaporman87 Posted on Aug 02, 2015 at 04:10 AM
My Trapper Keepers were vaults into my imagination, which also happened to house my schoolwork. I decorated them and filled them up with tons of sketches and comics I drew during study hall.
I never had a really cool backpack. They were always pretty plain looking, with no licensed product on anything on them. Now my folders were a different story. I had lots of different folders featuring cartoon characters to just funky shapes to just plain red or blue. Those too were decorated to fit my desires.
Those pencils with the "bullet" leads were some of my favorites, even if they weren't that practical. I don't think owned any of those until I entered high school though.
I do have a story that pertains to this subject a bit. Once, while I was cleaning out my desk while our teacher (Mr. Will, a bit of a hothead) giving a lesson, I suddenly heard the smack of my pencil box on the top of my desk and saw it shatter into pieces before me. My stuff went everywhere, including one of those compasses with the sharp point on it to hold it in place on the paper. It startled me. Then I saw that it was the teacher who had picked it up off my desk and shattered it. He didn't like that I was cleaning my desk while he was talking. He then said something to the effect of, "And I don't care if you tell your parents about this, it's your fault."
Well, I did tell my mom (my parents were divorced at this time). She was dating a State Highway Patrolman at the time, who was 6'8" tall. He and my mom went to pay him a visit. LOL
The next day, he apologized to me and the class, and purchased me a new box. Yeah. I think he ended up caring that I told a parent.
pikachulover Posted on Aug 01, 2015 at 04:53 AM
@hoju yeah they were once I told a paper moocher "I'm not a tree!" I didn't live that down until the next school year.
Hoju Koolander Posted on Aug 01, 2015 at 01:30 AM
@echidna64 I definitely cut up many a paper shopping bag to protect my text books. Mainly I did this so I could doodle on the outside to customize it.
@pikachulover Glad you finally lived the dream in college. Those lead moochers must have been just as bad as the notebook paper freeloaders.
pikachulover Posted on Jul 31, 2015 at 10:34 PM
Some of the girls at my junior high would have so many key chains on their backpack the zipper tag fell off from all the weight.
Mechanical pencils are great!I prefer those over the wood ones today. Too bad in school all you would seem to attract were lead moochers, or at least I did. Pop-a-point pencils were ok, but once you lost one of the leads the pencil was worthless.
I had always wanted one of those pencil cases as a kid, but never got one. When I was a freshman in college I bought myself one it was probably one of the first pieces of college school supplies I bough myself besides my computer.
echidna64 Posted on Jul 31, 2015 at 07:11 PM
Great memories Hoju! As we speak, I'm putting the curriculum together for my 10th grade students! Did anybody else have to cover your textbooks using brown grocery bags? I had one 4th grade teacher host a textbook cover contest to see who could draw the best design. Mine had a ton of robots drawn on it but I don't think I won anything.
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