Photo: Dominic Episcopo
within earSHOT
In putting together this Back to School issue, the first thing
we thought of were backpacks. When you return to school in the
fall, you always need (or at least want) a new school bag for all your new stuff. In grade school, my mom, my sister and I would hit Clover (Wal-Mart's
predecessor) in the Andorra shopping center and scout out exciting
essential stuff: pens, the giant pencil case, Trapper Keepers,
Thermoses with Sip-Saver lids, erasers, blue books. My own fillers included gum, Cliff's Notes, Creem magazine, Dr. Pepper-flavored lip gloss, puffy stickers and the
self-made origami "fortune teller" made out of loose-leaf notebook
paper that, when you folded it a certain way, would tell your
victim their fate - as in "Mr. Grossman (the math teacher with
food stuck in his beard) wants your bod." Back then, in an all-girls prep school, we carried regulation
blue bookbags that were part and parcel (literally) of our uniform.
We weren't hip to backpacks yet. And there couldn't be anything less stylish than those ugly navy
sacks. They required creative mutilation. So, in the brightest
colored pens we could find, we emblazoned them with cartoons,
band logos and boys' names. Then in high school, the world of school bags opened up. We were
allowed any bag we desired which, for my school, tended to be
either a monogrammed forest green L.L. Bean backpack or a monogrammed
L.L. Bean tote bag. Punk rocker Fern Kilcollum had the coolest
bag of all - a green knapsack hot off the racks from I. Goldberg
with secret compartments everywhere. Most importantly, it wasn't just your bag's design that suggested
a status symbol, but the way you carried your bag. Those were the days of pushing your blazer sleeves up to your
elbow, of never tying your Tretorn sneakers, and of carrying your backpack on
one and only one shoulder. Using both straps was completely dorky. Nobody
did it. To this day I still don't know why we did these things, except
that it was one more way to rebelliously make life less comfortable.
And now orthopedic surgeons will have to deal with a generation
of uneven collarbones. Then the shift happened: during a class trip to Europe we saw
hundreds of our French peers carrying their backpacks snugly on
(gasp) both shoulders. Though we instantly thought, "dorks," we
were quickly lured into their stylish ways. We went home with scarves around
our necks and both straps affixed. Now that ergonomics is a ruling influence, you rarely see the
one-shoulder tote. Look at rave kids, they need the freedom to
carry their water bottles somewhere while dancing at the same
time. In college, anything and everything was cool, although I never
carried a backpack - it was always the over-the-shoulder bag or
extra large tote bag. A particular giant brown leather bag was
so near and dear to me that I told a mugger, "Here, take my money,
just don't take my bag. I love my bag!" He took my bag. These days, I'm back to the backpack - the out-of-style mini backpack,
which I still believe is one of the greatest fashion inventions
of the last 10 years. I don't care if they've fallen out of favor
with trendsetters, or that they seem an easy target for pilfering
thieves; my hands are free to hold beer in one hand and gesticulate
with the other. "Don't you worry someone could unsnap your bag and steal your
money?" said a friend, as we were getting jostled at a very packed
night at Silk City. "I don't keep my money in my bag," I retorted. "That goes in my pockets." The backpack is just for stuff.
Pack To School