By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine
I WAS never the most enthusiastic person when it came to the first day of school. I was largely a bad student who only studied when I was fascinated by what we were taking up, which wasn’t often for most subjects, and never, when it came to math. I was also a kid with a history of being virtually impossible to drag away from the TV (I was a true-blue afternoon section guy), even if the school bus (ah, the immortal service) was already idling outside.
But there were things to love about the coming of school and most of it had to do with the new stuff we brought. There were the basics, like the stroller bag that went really fast. Those dismissal-time stroller races needed the swiftest strollers, after all. Everyone had new shoes but very few had new uniforms (usually reserved for Friday) so that was a wash.
It all boiled down to the glory of school supplies. From those days, I still carry with me an exultation that comes with staring at office supplies. Back then, it was all about the conspicuous stuff. Those were the 1980s, the heyday of the Trapper Keeper, those monstrous plastic-and-Velcro contraptions that were actually not very useful (too big, too bulky, way too noisy) but man, were they ever distracting. Mead (manufacturer of those Trapper Keepers) remains the grand poobah of binder construction today but has toned down the colors and dimensions to make tasteful and utterly practical wares.
Pencil boxes or pencil cases were a big deal too. The height of cool was those Japanese-manufactured boxes with magnetic latches on both sides, hidden foldout sections and even a built-in pencil sharpener. Today, they still make pencil boxes that look like those (check ‘em out in Sanrio, no kidding) but it’s just not the same. Back then, the boxes were decorated with our robots, our comic book heroes, while today’s boxes call on nostalgia with design but their decorations are faceless, generic.
The ballpoint pens were all the same. Bic, Kilometrico, Stabilo, Paper Mate, a ball pen was a ball pen. Pencils were tools of the trade, not badges of honor. Everyone used Mongol No. 2s, except when art class required the blue-and-black HB charcoal pencils. There were high-end tools we recognized: Corona notebooks and paper, Orion transparent rulers, and so on.
But the greatest joy of a new school year was the lunchbox syndrome. This was before we had to grow up and use those black plastic containers that held everything (rice, entrée, etc.) in their own containers, keeping them warm all the time. These were the days when Aladdin ruled lunch.
The Aladdin lunchboxes were glorious, coming in either metal (classic but kinda impractical) and plastic (awesome in every way). Outside were perfect images of our TV and comic book idols and inside was a Thermos with the same images. These were the images of our TV time: “Battlestar Galactica” classic, “CHiPs,” “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “The Six Million Dollar Man.” It was a great experience, eating lunch surrounded by the visage of our favorite characters, hinting of a time away from school when the TV is on and the first bell is impossibly far away.
For more school day capers, check out the Sunday Inquirer Magazine this weekend. Out June 8 with the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
