If you've been watching TV for any longer than 15 minutes during the past couple of weeks, no doubt you've been inundated with back-to-school commercials. Just open the daily newspapers to the comic pages, and there at least five strips dealing with the oncoming school year.
For some reason, it's the time of the year that all mothers look forward to. Nowadays, though, before you can go back to school, it seems you need a laptop computer, a complete home computer mainframe and printer as backup, stacks of software to run it, a cellphone and at least a closet full of designer clothing.
Back-to-school shopping for me - during those first few years I was in school - meant little more than going down to the local five-'n'-dime and picking up a new box of Crayolas in their familiar green-and-yellow box.
"Gary," my mother would proclaim, "it's already the third week of August - I think we'd better start thinking about getting you ready to go back to school. You need some new clothes."
"Aw, Mom," I'd protest, "we've still got over three weeks of summer left. Johnny and I are gonna build a fort down in the woods today - can't we go tomorrow?"
"Young man," she'd say, "if you know what's good for you, you'll be in the car and ready to go in five minutes." We'd pile into the Dodge and head downtown, ready again to do battle with the bustling hordes of back-to-school shoppers. My fort would have to wait.
The first stop would usually be at the local J.C. Penneys, where I'd get dragged into the Boys Clothing Department to try on outfits to see what sizes I'd be wearing this time around. Every year it seemed my arms and legs had grown an inch, and I had picked up a little around my waist as well - I didn't see why I had to be along. I mean, couldn't Mom just add an inch to each of the measurements, and buy the stuff without me?
Mom would then pick out four long-sleeved flannel shirts (usually two plaids, a print and a solid) and two pairs of corduroy pants (a blue and a brown), and I'd almost have my new wardrobe.
The next stop, traditionally, was at the shoe store for a pair of new tennies and a pair of lace-up black oxford "good shoes." The shoe salesman would measure my foot, get the selected shoes and they'd almost always fit. I'd never be satisfied, though, until I'd looked at them in the fluoroscope - I'll probably come down with extreme toe cancer when I'm 75 as a result of my youthful X-ray abuse.
The next stop would be at the five-'n'-dime for "school supplies." When I was in the first grade in Cincinnati, the school supplied pencils and paper. But the pencils were so big it was like trying to write with a telephone pole, and the wide-lined newsprint had chunks of wood embedded in it that you had to dodge around.
We moved to Chicago the next year, and when I was ready for second grade - and from then on - I had to supply my own paper, pencils, pens, etc. But I did talk my mom into moving up to a better grade of paper.
One item that I got my choice of, in my back-to-school preparations, was my lunchbox. The five-'n'-dime usually had a whole table filled with them, and it was always a challenge to decide between a round-top or a flat-sided style; then came the decision between the Roy Rogers or Captain Midnight models. I ended up grabbing a Hopalong Cassidy round-top.
About the time I had moved on to the sixth grade, I wasn't interested in new lunchboxes or flannel shirts and "whistle pants" from Penney's anymore. I wanted to look sharp. I had discovered girls. That year we went shopping at the Broadway (Southern California's Nordstrom) where I became a Dobie Gillis clone.
Button-down, striped sport shirts filled my closet, along with polished cotton chino pants. The stop at the shoe store resulted in me purchasing my first pair of penny-loafers, along with a corresponding stop at the bank for new pennies. (You can't have new penny-loafers and no new pennies.)
I thought I was pretty cool when I headed off to school that year. I mean, I had all the right clothes, the right shoes; I'd even gotten my hair cut.
But by the time the first week ended, I knew I was out of it. A failure.
My new chinos didn't have a belt in the back just above the rear pockets.
I've never recovered.
Gary McDaniel is a freelance columnist living in Magnolia.[[In-content Ad]]
