I am not in back to school shape. Wednesday morning, I was walking out the door to take my 11-year-old daughter, Cadyn, to school. Being the great dad I am I decided to grab her backpack and toss it into the car for her. That thing nearly pulled my arm out of socket! I could not believe her backpack was that heavy.
When I asked her what she had in there, she said "stuff." When I pressed the issue, she explained that there were books, folders, a sweater, lip-gloss, spare masks and an umbrella. Seems logical to have that stuff in a backpack.
However, when I started thinking back to my school days I never used a backpack. Heck, no one in my school ever used a backpack. The girls had purses and some of the more nerdy kids used book satchels but most of us just carried our books, notebooks and folders under our arms.
Sure, sometimes on the walk home I would have to switch my books back and forth between my arms. Some industrious kids would use an old belt to gather their books together and form a strap for the books.
It was a sure sign a fight was about to happen when you saw the two folks throw their books to the ground. The scrap would take place then the winner would always have excited fans gather up their books and hand them back to them. The unfortunate loser would be left to gather their books alone, oftentimes in tears and torn clothes.
Our books were not just books -- they were also safety equipment. I remember vividly the tornado drills where we would all stream into the hallway and squat in front of the lockers with our books over our heads. I always found it odd that the teachers never squatted or used the book head cover. I guess since it was a drill they did not need to but it did look odd to me.
Times change and things improve. Backpacks are certainly better for carrying books than a book satchel or an old belt. Still, I can't help but feel a little nostalgia for the old ways.
Kids today will never know the pleasure of being picked to go outside and clean the chalkboard's clap erasures. The clouds of dust it would generate would rival the Oklahoma dust bowl. Often those erasures were filled up because someone had to write sentences on the board as a punishment.
I guess nostalgia does cut both ways. Our kids are also spared the anxiety that was caused when each teacher would take the first 10 minutes of the first class of the year to introduce you to their paddle. Each teacher had their own unique names for their instrument of corporal punishment. I still remember "Sting," "Painful Paul," "Sass Stopper" and of course "The Punisher." I had personal encounters with each of these paddles, so their names stuck in my brain.
Then there was always that mysterious electric paddle machine that the principal kept hidden in his office. That one was reserved for the baddest of the bad kids. I do not recall anyone ever seeing it in person. However, we all knew it was out there waiting on us.
Nevertheless, we all have to adapt and change. I have started doing pushups in an attempt to handle my next encounter with the overstuffed backpack. Alternatively, I could just tell myself "Don't Touch This" the next time I consider interacting with the backpack.
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August 30, 2020 at 04:07PM
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Backpacking back in time - Hot Springs Sentinel
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