If you didn't carry bookbags, what happened to your books

[senseandsensibility]

when it rained and snowed? I'm from California, and of a different generation than Hillary, but I don't get it. All the photos show people carrying books in their arms, and that's fine. But it looks like it's nice weather in the photos. Did you just let the books get drenched?

There's a lot I don't understand about living in states with actual "weather", since I'm a native Californian, but I don't get this.

And yes, I realize that there are many more important topics, but you guys brought it up.:)

[rocktivity]

1. I carried my books during junior high school

just wrapped them in the plastic the dry cleaning came in.
:headbang:
rocknation

[JohnnyLib2]

2. Isn't this a bizarre topic? For the record,

I was in Ithaca, NY at the same time. With lots of snow and rain, we found something to carry the books in--usually something improvised.

I've wished ever since that I'd had the brainstorm for what later became trendy bookbags. :toast:

[asjr]

5. I remember book bags from

the 1930s and 1940s.

[Hepburn]

6. Exactly....

...and also remember that in the 60s, panchos were really a big thing. I remember carrying my books underneath that when it rained. I am on the West Coast and went to school there...so no snow, but some rain.

[Hepburn]

3. We used book covers....

...usually made out of paper grocery bags. Some were "store bought" and had themes linked with the school...some kind of laminated thick paper on these.

[Adelante]

9. Yes, paper bags

I learned how to do it from my big brothers when I was very young.

[dchill]

22. You may have been very young...

but I used paper bag book covers, too - and you're very close to giving away your age! :)

[Adelante]

26. I am Hillary's age, no getting away from it

:)

My very first school books were on the kitchen table and my brothers were teaching me how to fold the paper bags so there was a neatly reinforced edge at top and bottom and they wrote the book's name on the spine for me. I remember my little fingers were clumsy at it. :D

[dchill]

27. I enjoyed doing it...

a lot more than I enjoyed actually cracking those books later.

[Blue_In_AK]

49. Didn't we all do that?

I could make those in my sleep, and they were fun to doodle on.

[dchill]

50. We all did that...

if we are of a certain age.
;)

[Blue_In_AK]

51. And I certainly am.

:blush:

[dchill]

53. Me too - Nuff said.

:)

[TahitiNut]

17. Exactly.

We also wore ponchos and raincoats ... and tried to protect the books from the weather. At least whe I went to college (between 1961 and 1966), books were a huge part of the investment for a kid from a blue collar family.

[TomInTib]

36. Man, these people are wearing me out.

That school business sure sounds like hard work.

That's one thing that I am not sorry I missed.

[JohnnyLib2]

45. Yeah, we spent years honing the b.s. skills.

Shows, doesn't it? :evilgrin:

[dogday]

4. In college, I would only have a couple classes a day

so I carried my books.. If it rained, I held them under my jacket, or used an umbrella...

[Adelante]

Umbrella

I carried my books in my arms in the 60s. There was a period that followed before backpacks when shoulder bags were used and I did. Although I am Hillary's age, I worked for a few years after high school and before college, so I place the shoulder bag in the 70s. But I personally don't see why Hillary couldn't have carried her books in some kind of bag, if she wanted to, at any time, so this whole controversy is kind of passing me by.

[GarbagemanLB]

7. I'd just toss them in my steam-powered horseless carriage.

[senseandsensibility]

8. LOL

:hi:

[JohnnyLib2]

11. heh! I clearly remember the saddlebags on ol' Betsy.

:evilgrin:

[hisownpetard]

41. Was that your little sister's name?

[JohnnyLib2]

44. Nah, little sister was "Stinky."

She'd beat you up over that one. :hi:

[hisownpetard]

46. Yeah? Well, I'd just hit her with my bookbag!

[TexanDem]

10. zipper notebooks and book covers

I graduated in '65. I had zipper notebooks, two or three ring, they were deep enough to keep all your theme paper and dividers for your different subjects, mimeographed handouts, and usually about two books inside, then zip it up. There were book covers, a heavy brown paper with ads that were free or we'd make our own out of brown paper grocery bags that helped protect our books. Personally I was fortunate enough to have parents who took me back and forth to school; so I didn't have a lot of problem with my books getting exposed to the elements.

[milkyway]

12. Good question. I don't remember doing anything, probably just covered them with my jacket.

All I remember is having a permanent spot on my right hip where I carried ten pounds of books everyday. Maybe it's a regional thing--I grew up in upstate NY--but I never even heard of the word "bookbag" until I had my own kids.

[OzarkDem]

13. I used a book bag

I guess the Obama supporters let theirs get wet.:-)

[JohnnyLib2]

16. You bad!

Thought provoking, though. :evilgrin:

[hisownpetard]

42. I'm an Obama supporter, and I let mine get wet. As often and possible.

:hi:

[noel711]

14. You walked fast to class...

and getting your homework rained on or snowed on
was a wonderful excuse: "Sorry I don't have my
homework.. it got rained on and I have to re-write it."

[pansypoo53219]

15. i did my homework in study hall.

took books rarely home. did have a backpack.

[Rageneau]

18. My books were on their own. If I had to be out in bad weather, so did they.

[Unsane]

19. What is this even about?

I dont understand this issue at all.

[senseandsensibility]

20. Check out all the current threads about bookbags

Apparently, Hillary said yesterday that she hurled her bookbag across the room when she heard that MLK had been killed, and some people think she's lying about the bookbag.

[Unsane]

21. lol

[ekwhite]

52. Jeez, that is a stupid topic to even bring up

Maybe they had book bags in Illinois at that time. It is cold and nasty up there in the winter.

[sandnsea]

23. Schools are all indoors

The school I went to in California had open corridors, although they were all covered. In colder parts of the country, schools are totally enclosed. There isn't any weather. As to walking to school, as the person above said, umbrella. Or you put them under your coat.

[JBoy]

24. Mandatory fashion at my high school (late 70s) dictated one of these:

You were ultra cool if you also wore Greb Kodiak work boots, preferably with the laces undone and toecap worn through to expose the steel toe.

[Neshanic]

25. In climates without Palm trees it went like this in the stone age of the late 60" and early 70's

Every class you went to on the first day of school, you were given the text. You did not buy them, but amazingly the school district provide them to you. Then you were given in some classes actual brown paper like shopping material that were premade to cover the book. When you were not, that night you went home and cut up some shopping bags, and put them blank side out to cover the books. This was an art hannded down from older brothers and sisters. Then you had the gun grey cloth three ring binder with tabs for notes.

Transiting the books from school and back was an easy affair, as guys held the the stack on their sides, and girls held them cross armed to their chest. The gym and football practice athletic bags were very usefull in holding the books, but sometimes the books took on the funk of an week of unwashed gym clothes.

The book covers were written on in all manner with artwork, and portraits of the teachers on others being devoured by Godzilla or since this was the Vietnam era, war planes of the time. As the 70's arrived, more and more premade book covers were available, with anti-war themes, and when not; huge peace symbols were drawn on them.

You could surprisingly keep the books in good condition with the covers, and were sent to the principals office if you did not have a cover on your books within the first week.

The amount of homework you had could be gauged from the stack you lugged around.

This was an example of how things like this were done in a very liberal New Jersey school district in the stone age. Of course the semi-tropical climate of today did not compare to the Ice Age climate my parents endured going to the same schools.

[silverweb]

31. Exactly!

I grew up in NJ and that's exactly how it was. There was no such thing as a "book bag" that I can remember until backpacks came on the scene years later. We called backpacks "knapsacks" and they were for hiking or camping. Apparently, no one thought of modifying them to carry school books for quite a while.

In rain or snow, you wrapped your books in a protective covering like a grocery bag, and held them against your chest and hunched over them; it was okay if you got soaked, but not okay if the books got wet. If a boy offered to carry a girl's books, that was almost as good as having him ask you to skate partners during the Saturday-afternoon skating parties in the gym.

Making book covers out of paper bags was an art form. I still remember working on perfecting those corners and determining precisely the right amount of flap to insert the hard cover of the book into. There was also a technique for turning paperback texts into hard cover editions so they could be properly covered.

Then came Contac paper! Oh, the designer-patterned, water-proofing glory of Contac book covers! Scott Wood sat in front of me in 5th grade science class, and delighted in both pulling my braids as he passed and pulling up the Contac paper on my science book when I wasn't looking. I had a terrible crush on him, but then he moved to England when his dad took a job there. Nobody else ever messed up my book covers quite the same way Scott did.... LOL

And yes, an Ice Age it was. Fingers and toes froze while walking to and from school, hurting enough to make me cry sometimes despite fur-lined gloves and 2-3 pairs of socks inside my boots. Two feet of snow was the norm... or even three. Does NJ ever see that kind of snow anymore?

But guess what? I don't miss the Stone/Ice Age OR New Jersey even a little bit! :D

[WinkyDink]

28. Went to Penn State. Had blizzards. Carried books in my arms. Not a difficult concept.

Rain? They're called "umbrellas".

[emilyg]

29. Who cares?

[proud2BlibKansan]

30. Only nerds carried bookbags

I don't remember my books ever getting wet. Good question though.

[JohnnyLib2]

37. or wonks?

:evilgrin:

[JayFredMuggs]

32. I was in college at the same time as Hillary and in Massachusetts

With winters and rain.

Seldom did I carry books around campus, I bought them and left them in my college dorm, except for maybe language courses, or novels for Literature classes. Why lug your books all over campus on snowy rainy days? Plastic or paper covers on the books, a paper bag or whatever if you had to lug a book to a class or a lab.

No kids at my college used book bags. Oh, and I rode a bike to class in good weather with a satchel on the back to hold a book or two.

I guess it's a custom, some college kids at some colleges like Harvard and Wellesley used book bags.

[azmouse]

33. We had lockers at school to keep most things.

At school I only carried what I needed for the next class and only took home what I needed to do my homework.

[DearAbby]

34. Well, I remember

carrying my paparus rolls in a burlap bag. Used to walk to school, 5 miles




Uphill...






both ways.

[azmouse]

35. What! No snow?

:rofl:

[SoCalDem]

38. they got wet.. (we had book covers back then)

[mamalone]

39. Actually my brother did use a bookbag....

but he was the only person I knew who did. The rest of us covered our books, usually with brown paper, or you could buy laminated paper book covers at the bookstore. Actually, in high school it was required that we cover our books. We had a week or so to get them covered, after that we'd get some sort of consequence... something like writing lines or inhouse detention. We also had notebooks that zipped shut so all of the papers, etc were protected. I well remember a bright yellow corduroy one I had which was the envy of all my friends... ahhh those were the days.

[Hieronymus]

40. I, much more recently, ruined a great book because I thought it was safe

in a book bag...rain went right in around the zippers. When I carried my books using an umbrella, my books stayed dry.

[bhikkhu]

43. I had an umbrella, so they stayed more or less dry carrying them

[Raejeanowl]

47. Don't Understand The Problem With Bookbags

A necessary evil when you actually did your work and had to transport stuff, especially in foul weather. Except that they, like books, became totally uncool to carry in high school (along with wearing any kind of socially unacceptable outer clothing that paid heed to either the daily forecast or the changing seasons).

So being a geeky kid, I used whatever covered totes and satchels I could find through college. And I can easily imagine myself even now referring to any of them as my "bookbag."

Bad, old, anachronistic me. Almost makes me nostalgically yearn for GALOSHES.

[Blue_In_AK]

48. I lived in Houston

and was going to the University of Houston in 1968. If I remember right (it was a long time ago, and some things are not too clear from that period of my life, if you get my drift), I just held them close to my body and ran like hell. We had some kind of waxy book covers that we covered our books with.