
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, August 21, 1995                   TAG: 9508210081
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SCHOOL SUPPLIES

IF I WERE still in school, I could be buying fresh new school supplies this week, too.

Reams of bright, clean paper, lined and unlined. Hole-punched and plain. White, yellow, pink, blue, salmon or mint green.

Dozens of fresh, unchewed pencils, each of them topped with the nub of a perfect pink eraser; each of them decorated with dazzling colors, sparkles, the names of football teams, Barbie, My Little Pony or nothing at all.

And the crayons! Think of the crayons I could buy. Boxes and boxes of crayons. Every color imaginable, each sharply pointed finger of color wrapped in flawless paper, smelling of faintly perfumed, mysterious, waxy oil.

And markers. Washable or indelible, in hundreds of colors.

And ballpoint pens, mechanical pencils, roller-ball pens, multicolored pens, all in one handy, hand-held cylinder: fountain pens with cartridges of peacock blue or emerald green ink, flexible pens that can be tied in a knot through the hole of a favorite notebook, pens with erasable ink, pens with permanent ink, pens with red, blue, purple or orange ink.

And the notebooks I could buy! Spiral-bound, college-ruled, wide-ruled, zippered. Perforated, hole-punched, pocket-sized, desk-sized, legal size. Covered in neons, ``brites,'' pastels and primaries; in Power Rangers, Mickey Mouse, Elvis, Mustangs. Hard-backed, slick-backed, soft-backed, Velcroed.

I could buy pencil boxes; envelopes; multi-use rulers; stencils; stick-on notes; paper clips; slick, transparent covers for all my book reports; mucilage; strawberry-scented Elmer's glue; tiny notebooks to slip in my pockets; stickers; rubber bands; index cards; file folders; and big, beautifully illustrated, slick-sided folders with pockets on the inside.

I could buy legal pads, ``quad'' pads, note pads, drawing pads, steno pads. Dividers for my loose-leaf binders, with jewel-toned plastic tabs for naming the divides.

I could buy index-card file boxes in two or three different sizes. Address books, and schedule books, and one book in which to record nothing more than tomorrow's homework assignments.

Poster board, tempera paint, water colors, assorted brushes, tracing paper, art gum erasers, a tiny stapler with staples to fit, scissors, tape, extra ink cartridges, a lap desk, a study lamp, a pencil sharpener, bookmarks, protractors, compasses and slide rules.

I could buy fan-fold paper for my computer's printer, and recycled cut-sheet paper for the laser printer, too. I could buy double-sided, double-density, formatted IBM disks and a soft-sided carrying case in which to carry my lap-top to school.

I could buy a briefcase, a backpack, a lunchbox, a tote bag; a sleek little shoulder wallet with spaces to hold my pencils and pens; a nearly square, dark-green, snap-closure plastic box in which to carry my disks.

I could buy a tiny ink-jet printer that would fit in the case with my lap-top, and Windows 95. I could buy Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia on CD; a thesaurus, a dictionary, a grammar-check, and Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, too.

I could buy a modem, and just stay home from school.

Where I could write my own textbooks on how I got the wherewithal to buy all my school supplies.

But, as I'm not still in school after all, I don't have to buy a thing. And so my wherewithal, or lack thereof, isn't relevant.

Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.

by CNB