THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 18, 1995 TAG: 9504180037
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
THERE THEY ARE again, same as every school-day morning and afternoon. Little kids, clumping along, all bent over, backpacks the size of UPS vans on their backs. They look like tiny sneaker-shod Sherpas humping it to a base camp on Everest.
What's in those book bags, anyway?
One elementary student I know - who shall remain nameless to spare her unnecessary embarrassment and ridicule, and because her mother might hide my socks in the freezer - every morning hoists onto her back this big purple bag, slipping both arms through the straps. This for a 3-foot walk to the car.
Her friends do the same. They sit in the car like that, their seat belts extended to the maximum, all hunched forward like paratroopers in a plane heading to France on D-Day.
What's in those book bags, anyway?
When I was in elementary school, most of us had old leather briefcase-like book bags, the kind that made one arm too long when you carried them and shmushed your peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches when you snapped them shut. At the bus stop, we all looked like junior accountants. My goal then was to be like Opie Taylor on ``The Andy Griffith Show'' and carry my books by an old belt cinched around them. Minimalist chic.
You don't see books-in-belts these days. Even the youngest kids seem to be wearing bright-colored steamer trunks on their backs. You could fit whole sets of encyclopedias inside some of them.
What's in those book bags, anyway?
We decided to check the purple bag. With permission, of course.
It wasn't a pretty sight.
First out was an orange-and-pink plastic fish. Some kid had thrown it inside our bag-carrier's bus, onto our bag-carrier, so she'd kept it.
There was her ``emergency'' money plus some odd change, $3.52 altogether. There was raspberry lip gloss. A black plastic comb they'd handed out on school-picture day. A fist-size wad of tissues. A house key on a Catwoman key chain. Her parents' work numbers.
Two paperback pleasure-reading books. A folder containing a March calendar with nothing written on it. A sequin in the shape of a leaf. An empty plastic bag.
Oh, there was school stuff, too: A four-color pen broken since the school year began. A mechanical pencil. Regular pencils, including one held together with tape. A set of colored pencils. The broken-off point of a pencil.
A bunch of erasers, some in tiny pieces. Several paper clips. One rubber band. A protractor. A bent-up memo pad. A pink highlighter marker. Scrap pieces of paper. A lone blue crayon last used in October.
A white loose-leaf binder containing an old test and a snowflake cutout. Two old spelling-word lists. Half a sketch of a character from ``Little Women.'' An award pin from a reading program. An orange safety-patrol belt. A picture of her best friend in class.
Near the bottom was a crumpled invitation to an ``organization seminar'' at our bag-owner's school. It had taken place two weeks earlier.
Other items: A piece of soft wood found on the playground. A purple plastic-bead necklace someone brought back from Mardi Gras. A pair of cheap sunglasses with only one lens. Orange and pink shoelaces from Crazy Shoelace Day.
So where were the schoolbooks in this book bag?
``I don't have any homework.'' by CNB