What Sept 2nd to 6th Means To Me ....

Trapper Keeper.  You Elusive Fool!

1) The start of the school year.

2) A Trapper Keeper

3) The fact that I'm still sore that my parents never bought me a Trapper Keeper.

Remember Trapper Keepers?  They were the iPad of the 1980's.  It held your folders, schedules, notebooks, pencils, pens and usually featured a fun picture on the front that would define your personality and interests for your classmates. Simply put, THEY WERE COOL. It also made for a handy wall to block your classmates wandering eyes from your paper during pop quizzes (No, I never did this because, remember, I didn't have a Trapper Keeper!)

Though they did prevent me from copying when I was unprepared (boo!)

I actually cannot recall why I wanted one so bad, but my best guess is because everyone else had one, and conforming is top priority for elementary school kids.  The first memory of my buddy Eric was when he entered our third grade class room on the first day of school with his hot air balloon Trapper.  That lucky fuck, I thought...even though hot air balloons were kinda lame.  At that age, I'd have much prefered a baseball or football player, maybe even a picture of a dog.  Point being, see, if I only had a Trapper Keeper perhaps perception of me would have changed and my life would be completely different than it is today.  I hope you're happy Mom, this is probably the reason you don't have grandchildren. 

Anyway, the whole point of this is that the Trapper Keeper represented those first days of elementary school, those days when your parents took you shopping for school supplies and, at least for me, your mother told you that you couldn't be the proud owner of one of those new, exciting Trapper Keepers.

At least I had a cool Fraggle Rock lunchbox, even if it was a hand-me-down.