(Stream of consciousness post)
Last night (via a discussion about Swedish Berries, concentrated pear juice, and Sunkist Funfruits) I got to thinking about back-to-school. The main thing I remember about back-to-school ads were stationery products - feltpens and markers. Come late August you’d be seeing ads for Window Writers, Gel Writers, Spider-Writers… markers that vibrated, perfumed the room, glowed, oozed, bent. I remember being in Vital Grandin and begging my parents for a (totally unnecessary) package of those change-colour markers where you could use the ’special’ marker to change brown to orange, blue to yellow… I got it (and loved it) and also scored a pack of those disappearing-colour markers that let you draw really neatly by erasing the scribbly edges of your drawing.
I remember the piercing, chemical smell of the special markers (one per pack, woe betide the kid who lost it and ended up with merely ordinary markers). Magic Markers, Jiffy Markers, Mr. Sketch… a shimmering haze of fumes over the classroom of industrious, slightly-stoned kids who didn’t know why they were colouring in a portrait of John Cabot any more but damned if theirs was going to look stupid compared to the kid in the next row.
Do they still have those ads? For that matter, do they still have those markers? What do kids do nowadays in school, do they still draw and colour? Are there projects to do - on paper, with scissors and handwritten labels? Do kids still get the workbook to colour in around Christmas, with weird drawings of ‘Santa Claus Around the World’? Do kids still make dioramas? Or are they all busy with self-affirmation cards, Googling things about Pluto, kiddy yoga, dyeing their hair, Wiis, and sketchy jelly bracelets? Is the generation gap really so wide? Because I totally can’t find any of those markers in my nearby Grand ‘n Toy.
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