Every year, at this time, our father got very excited because the time was coming to take us out for school supplies. We were four kids and he accompanied each and every one of us irregardless of age, grade or whether or not we wanted his company. Hard to believe, but he’d been looking forward to that day all summer. After our first day of school, each of us would have a list of needed supplies. These usually included:
spiral notebooks
loose leaf notebooks and paper, dividers and labels, reinforcements, perhaps graph paper
pencils (one or two)
pen (one)
soft gum eraser
ruler
protractor
Having been given textbooks 0n loan from the school, our father would fetch a pile of saved empty brown bags (from A & P or Bohack’s markets), clear off our oval kitchen table, turn the paper bags inside out and cut them open. Then, with perfect folds using no glue, no scotch tape, no staples or other fasteners, he would fashion a smooth, elegant, tight-fitting paper jacket for each. Pristine brown paper! (Well, clean for a while)
Our father accompanied us each to a stationary supply store (which is where we got these supplies in those days) as long as he could and when we were no longer students, he’d take his grandchildren shopping with the same glee. He took one of my nieces shopping for school supplies through her undergraduate years at NYU and would have continued accompanying her (and insisting on paying) through her Ph.D. had she not gone far away to Berkley and had he not died.
For anyone wondering why no backpacks or lunch boxes were on the list, please realize: We carried everything in our arms in those times and our lunch was packed in waxed paper and place, along with a paper napkin, into a small paper bag which was discarded when empty.
To this day, we all love wandering around stationary stores.
Not much of an annual highlight to be remembered by. He must have felt very good about himself by this act of parental generosity and attention …
(to be deleted)
But it was. It was a ritual and we all loved his interest in our supplies.
He was a bit like a 9 year old kid…
We would sit at the oval table with it’s brightly patterned Tree of Life tablecloth, scissors at the ready and cover our books with the thick brown shopping bag paper. These bags were hard won as we had no car and needed to push our shopping cart a mile though the city (rain and shine). Bright markers lay sprawled between us and were used to remove the anonymity of each book. Helle wrote the name of each book boldly across the front of each in her clear script and I doodled, scrolling patterns, flowers and animals that bore no relation to the contents of the book I was embellishing. A roll of packing tape helped us waterproof each cover and gave us the feeling that we had finished each book in a most professional way.
Ah! There’s an idea…the waterproofing idea. Grand.
Johanne, I don’t remember that! Another memory that must have gone with the lobotomy. What a nice recollection. All this last week Zoe has been coming home from school with new schoolbooks that need covering. We employ once-used gift-wrapping paper (I keep a box of this in the loft), reinforcing the corners with clear tape. Zoe is particular about picking paper with a pattern that suits the subject matter of the book, although I’m not quite sure I understand her “system.” We sort through the box, looking for scraps big enough for the purpose and not too beat-up. (Will she remember this when she’s 50 or will she follow in my footsteps and forget it?) I wish I knew Alison’s dad’s method of folding fastener-free book covers – like origami! That’s a nifty trick. Was he also a wiz at bed sheets with hospital corners?
I admit felt a jealous twinge when I read about his book covering skills. He would have done well at the gap where they are constantly refolding shirts. When he watched them do their homework he must have kvelled as he watched them bent over the books he protected.
I laughed out loud when you wrote about Zoe’s system. How many systems of the kids I never truly got when they quizzed me. Aylam had a system of cars when he was 3. He’d say that’s a cool car, that’s not, pointing into traffic. No matter how many times he showed me and explained the system I rarely go it right.
I don’t think he ever folded a shirt. He’d put his on the back of a chair.
Ah, a man after my own heart! The luxury of brand new pencils, pens, erasers and notebooks held the promise of good things to come, but for me pleasant anticipation battled with feelings of dread. Buying school supplies meant the summer was over and I never looked forward to school. I still experience a frisson of happiness + gloom when I see back-to-school gear in the shops. Norwegian kids have a slang word for having this mix of feelings: to “gruglede”, which combines “gru” (to dread) with “glede” (to look forward to gladly). (Kids’ systems – there’s an idea for a blog post; Johanne!)