Back to School and Lunch Boxes

What more needs to be said? Summer is over, and it's time to head back to school. In our case, that would have been Hambright Elementary. Located a convenient two blocks from Wagners, it was the elementary school most of us Manor Ridgers went to. Those on the outlying areas in Fairway Park and Colonial Manor may have been bussed to ER Martin, Eshleman, or another elementary school. But those of us nearest Wagners went to Hambright.

The approach of the new school year was always heralded by an ominous development - the appearance of "Back To School" sales at JC Penney's, Sears, or Two Guys. These advertisements would always begin to appear in the newspaper, and even on TV, sometime in early to mid August. Like the geese returning to their winter nesting grounds in the south, the coming of the Back To School advertisements meant autumn, and school, were right around the corner.

It might have been time to get a new lunch box for the new school year? Mine is pictured above - from the famous 1960's TV show Gomer Pyle USMC (which I never much cared for and was thus rather disappointed in my parents selection of my lunch box). The great retro-60's, 70's, 80's site Retrocrush even included my crappy Gomer Pyle lunch box in their list of crappy lunch boxes kids had to carry to school. But it got the job done. I never carried the enclosed thermos and instead bought my milk - it cost a nickel and you got a pint bottle of milk complete with push down cardboard cap. You had to return the empty bottle at the end of lunch to the empty bottle rack or risk retribution from one of the lunch ladies.

My Gomer Pyle lunch box typically contained a sandwich, maybe some pretzels, but always, some TastyKakes - Butterscotch Krimpets or Chocolate Cupcakes. My dad bought these at Wagners for me and my brothers and sisters lunch boxes - my dad was a big lover of what he called "goodies" (and pastry). He himself always had TastyKakes in his lunch bag he took to work at Armstrong.

For me, the presence of TastyKakes on a regular basis in my lunch box opened up an entrepreneurial opportunity. Many of my fellow lunch mates never got TastyKakes, either because their parents could not afford them or refused to buy them. I would sell a single TastyKake cupcake or Krimpet for anywhere from a nickel to a dime (depending on the going rate of exchange and the number of kids willing to get into a bidding war over them). Since there were three TastyKakes in a single package, I could sell one, or even two of them, and still have one left over to eat for lunch.

With the pocketed 10 cents to 20 cents in profit from my lunchtime trading activity, it was, of course, time to visit Wagners on the return journey home after school. Since a pack of TastyKakes cost ten cents, I could replace what I had sold, and have some money left over for penny candy, or spend it all on a soda, candy, what ever. It was, for me, quite a lucrative business for a couple of years in elementary school. It seemed there were always those willing to exchange milk money for a TastyKake.

Those old lunch boxes, pieces of brightly colored stamped American steel with pop icon images of the day, now are collectible items that sell for hundreds of dollars in good condition (with the thermos bottle). My Gomer Pyle disappeared shortly after I left elementary school, never to be seen again. I never missed it.