Back to School

I kept my first pencil box until I was thirteen. It included all my school treasures from Mrs. Gulbransen’s kindergarten class. It held a nine-pack: red, yellow, blue, orange, purple, green, black, brown, and white. Somehow I managed without heather tip, sage, gunmetal, balsam yellow, or feather red. The box cost 29 cents—the deluxe—and included two #2s, a wooden ruler with fulls and halves marked up to six, a jumbo pink pearl, a nine-pack Crayolas, and a sharpener that broke after I learned g, h, and i. The Big Chief writing pad was 15 cents extra. Dad loaned it to me, but I had to recite the Pledge of Allegiance three times in a row. It took me three days to memorize “indivisible for liverty and justice…”. Undoubtedly the hardest cash I ever paid back.

Now pencil boxes are plastic, empty, and 88 cents for the economy model. So, for a family of four kids, that’s $59.40 for the same things my 44 cents bought. When you toss in new shoes, levis, t-shirts, undies, socks, and a belt, that’s a pretty good reason to use a credit card or quick loan, I’d say.