Thursday, August 28, 2008

Back To School

Well, are your kids back in school? The schools in this county all began either last week or this week. Looks like Betsy McCall had a nice walk to school back in the day! I hope there are still some areas in the country where kids can walk to school safely without worry?
Did you take a lunch box to school when you were little? I'd love to have one of these great Aladdin lunch kits now! I don't actually remember having a lunch box. If I did, I don't recall - and I'm pretty sure I would have saved it! We were lucky to have a new cafeteria built at our elementary school, and the food was REALLY good. Doris Richardson and Jill Potter were two of the fabulous cooks who worked there. Doris was a Farm Bureau member and those ladies know how to cook.
As long as I live, I will never get used to school starting before Labor Day. It never did while we were going, and so it never started in August. It just seems so WRONG to me. August is summer. It's just wrong.
(Both of these advertisements are from the September 1958 issue of McCall's magazine. I collect the Betsy pages. I used to cut them out and save them when I was little. I like to display them during the appropriate month or holiday season.)

7 comments:

black eyed susans kitchen said...

Fabulous post! When I was a little girl, I used to cut out and collect the Betsey McCall page...maybe that was my first collection...In reading your most recent posts, I think that I may have found a kindred spirit. I am so glad that you stopped by my blog today. I will be linking yours to mine so as not to forget to come by again. Susan

Heidi Ann said...

Susan - I still have the little wooden paint box that I used to keep my paper dolls in back then. But the dolls are gone - it's hard for me to believe I ever threw them away. Maybe I didn't, maybe someone else did, I don't know. But even though they were all cut out, I wish I still had them.

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness!! I totally had the plaid set shown in the picture! I sooooooooo wish I would've had the opportunity to keep it. My mother was not a saver and she was not very sentimental about "stuff." She was not a fan of clutter, and she was very practical, so she probably donated it or gave it away to someone. I have really great memories of that lunch box, I brought my lunch in it from Kindergarden to third or fourth grade, then a mean boy threw it against a tree and the thermos broke. Then I got me one of them new fangled soft vinyl Charlie's Angles lunch boxes (oh man I LOVED that one too). I still used the plaid lunch box for other stuff, in fact I remember keeping my 45s in there for a time. Thanks for making me think of those fond memories!! :-)

Twyla and Lindsey said...

I'm with you, school shouldn't start before labor day! I'm glad when my kids were in school it didn't start in Aug. Twyla

Tina Dawn said...

I had the plaid aladdin lunch box on the far right. I think I just about wore it out. I am sure I had others but I don't recall. We didn't have the cafeteria like you, it wasn't built until my last year there. Jill Potter was also one of my many cooking 4-H leaders. Her little house was up in back of what is now Zachary Jaques restaurant. My granddaughters have actually started to school on or before my birthday! (August 15th) One of the things I loved about my birthday growing up was I never had to go to school on my birthday! Well, at least they waited for me to grow up before they changed the dates. I don't understand it either. Changes for the better are always nice, but what is for the better about having school in the summer? Love T

Anonymous said...

I don't have a blog and am new to all this but I wanted to tell you that yes there are still places where children walk to school. They also can go out to play with friends without me watching their every move and ride their bikes out of my sight. Thanks for a great blog...my childhood is on these pages.

Heidi Ann said...

That's good to know! I'm happy to hear it. We lived too far away from school on country roads to walk, so we rode the bus. To this day, I remember all of the bus driver's names - they all worked there for YEARS.