Sunday, May 30, 1999
Treasures buried in beloved book bags
BY KAREN SAMPLES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
FLORENCE — Snap! This is the sound of Meghan Pratt's book bag in revolt. It's so full that sometimes the straps come apart and the bag thumps to the ground.
Of course this happens just as I'm asking the seventh-grader why her bag looks so heavy.
She and her friends giggle at this question. They giggle when the strap breaks. They giggle a lot, these girls.
They also manage to fit a lot into their book bags. Last fall, I promised to take another peek into said bags at the end of the school year, because parents and kids said they'd be fuller then.
As it turns out, this is a tough year for the good ol' backpack. With all the concern about safety, some schools are changing their rules. Ryle High School in Union will ban book bags beginning next fall, and Boone County High began requiring mesh bags this year.
It's depressing, in a way. Someday, book bags may become part of our nostalgia for the innocent past.
“Remember book bags?” we'll say. “Remember when we used to carry around pieces of aluminum foil, love notes, 'N Sync fan magazines, CDs and huge, slightly deteriorated Jawbreakers from Orlando, Fla.?”'
Yep, all these items were discovered in kids' book bags this week.
After school on Thursday and Friday, I talked with students and parents from R.A.
Jones Middle School in Florence and two schools in Hebron: Goodridge Elementary and Conner Middle.
Meghan and her friends go to R.A. Jones. Meghan's bag was the one with the two CDs.
Rhiannon Napier, also a seventh-grader, had the huge Jawbreaker. We're talking a piece of candy the size of a softball here. Rhiannon said she kind of forgot about it.
Most kids' bags are full of schoolwork. But at middle schools, straps also are put to the test by 'N Sync paraphernalia: fan magazines, song lyrics, pictures of band members and key chains.
'N Sync is the rock band among adolescents these days, according to Rhiannon and her twin sister, Nicole Napier.
While preparing this column, I was urged by a few girls to pass along messages about their love for particular 'N Sync guys, as if they might drop everything and rush to Florence upon hearing that a 13-year-old adores them.
Well, some things never change. Like crushes. And passing notes. Ryan Levan, a Jones eighth-grader, is carrying his retainer, which he wears “sometimes,” sunglasses and a little bottle of something called “sweet breath,” which he uses after lunch.
He also has an as-yet-undelivered note to a girl.
With names removed to protect privacy, it reads thusly:
“Hey, what's up? How come (so-and-so) keeps asking me if I like you? I used to like you, but now I just like you as a friend.”
Ouch.
The prize for busiest bag goes to Jones seventh-grader Tiffany Landrum. Besides schoolwork, she's got gym clothes, two party invitations, notes to friends, Silly Putty, sunglasses, one pink and one yellow balloon, mascara, pens, body glitter, lip gloss, foundation and powder.
Another Jones student, eighth-grader Sheena Corman, gets creative with her bag. It's covered with doodles, mostly about the World Wrestling Federation.
Key chains are big among Sheena and other middle-schoolers.
In Hebron, I met Audrey Chastain, an eighth-grader at Conner Middle. Her backpack contains six key chains, none with keys on them. The chains feature interesting doodads, though: A miniature water gun, a small bottle of hand soap, a silver replica of a Hershey's kiss, a bell, a plastic star and a string of beads.
Collecting apparently runs in Audrey's family.
Her fifth-grade brother, Nathan Chastain, always has a few pieces of aluminum foil in his bag. At Good ridge Elementary, classmates give him the foil from their lunches, and he takes it home.
“I wanted to call the Guiness Book of World Records and make the biggest foil ball in the world,” Nathan said. “That'll take me a couple of years.”
Elementary book bags are even more innocent than middle-school ones. No makeup or love notes, just lots of crumpled-up papers, loose change, food crumbs and shiny things.
Goodridge third-grader Victoria Osborne and her sister, kindergartener Brandy Osborne, both have teletubbies in their backpacks.
Victoria also has a crumpled-up piece of paper containing important information: All of her friends' phone numbers for the summer.
Tina Powell, Victoria's mother, makes a point of cleaning out her daughters' book bags once a week. Otherwise, “it would accumulate and probably look like a dumpster,” Ms. Powell said.
Like I said, some things never change.
Karen Samples is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. Her column appears on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. She can be reached at ksamples@enquirer.com
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