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Show "OBBRUM FIELD g Back-to-school clothes have changed marched down the hall together for a big pep talk in the auditorium Anyone who fell out of formation was bayoneted. I don't know about education in general, but the quality of school lunches has improved a great deal since I was a kid. We used to bring jellied biscuits from home to supplement sup-plement the roots, grubs and berries ber-ries we foraged in the school yard. Today, scurvy and beri-beri are practically unknown in the school system. A" of lhe teache,s were wm: them. I especially. "" grade teacher. If-during If-during multiplied 311 'he small hand with a heavy now- "less herd-she herd-she got a rotten Repn-;. Cinch AH ,he stores seem to be having hav-ing big "back-to-school" sales They're pushing everything from back-to-school adding machines to back-to-school Corvettes. The way fashions change, kids require a completely new wardrobe ward-robe every time they return to school. They also require - judging judg-ing from the ads in the papers -new watches, watch bands, billfolds, bill-folds, travel suit bags, 800-docu-ment file boxes, steel-framed attache at-tache cases, matched luggage and all manner of exotic gear to make their education a relevant, meaningful mean-ingful experience. Reminds me of my back-to-school clothes - last year's pants with the cuffs let out, fresh toe-and-heel darning on the old socks and half-soles for my boots. By the time I'd reached the sixth grade, my pockets had been sewed up so many times they were convex. Corduroy knickers were very big in those days. They never wore out. Eventually, as I grew taller, I looked like I was wearing corduroy jockey shorts. People didn't throw clothes away. The only reason my mother let me stop wearing those knickers was because she was afraid the elastic bottoms might give me gangrene. Flannel shirts were a popular item, too. A kid got a new one when the tail of the old one exposed ex-posed his breasts, or his eyeballs popped out of the sockets when the collar was buttoned. I did get a few items for back-to-school every year, though. I always al-ways got a new paper bag for my lunch, and I always got a fresh whipping. School was so much fun in those days that kids loved to go back in the fall. The first day everyone |