As August draws to a close, school buses are back on the roads, blackboard rails have chalk dust in them again, and back-to-school shopping is pretty much wrapped up. But as I walked the aisles of notebooks, pencils, and backpacks last week, there was one item that seemed to be missing from the store shelves. I'm talking, of course, about the metal lunchbox.
I'm sure I'm showing my age, but when I walked to school (uphill, both ways), my books were carried loosely in one hand and my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, potato chips, and cookies, were packed safely away in a tightly clasped, rectangular metal lunchbox.
For me, the end of summer was a sad time. At once, an end came to all-day frolicking through the neighborhood, riding my bike until dark, playing hopscotch to my heart’s content, and spending countless hours inside the nearest air-conditioned building—the Nicholson Memorial Library. But the saving grace was an August trip to the neighborhood five-and-dime store to pick out a new lunchbox for the school year. No decision was more important: What you carried your lunch in said a lot about your personality, your attitude—your whole ethos.
Whether your interest was television, music, sports, movies, or comics, you could find a lunchbox that proudly proclaimed your allegiance in four-color pressed metal. Most boxes came with a matching Thermos for keeping 8 ounces of liquid cool (or hot), and many a lunch period was spent looking at all six sides of the box, admiring the artwork that adorned the armor of lunchtime sustenance.
Although the lunch pail has been around since the late 1800s, it wasn't until 1935 that the first marketing genius thought to appeal to kids by pasting Mickey Mouse's picture on a box. Still, the lunchbox as we know it didn't surge into popularity until the early '50s. Branded lunchboxes really took off, launching a heyday that lasted more than 30 years, paying tribute to cultural icons from Sleeping Beauty to Holly Hobbie, from Annette Funicello to Wonder Woman — and darn near everything in between.
New manufacturing processes during the mid-1970s gave way to injection-molded plastic boxes (with one lousy decal) and flimsy vinyl boxes that fell apart a month into the new school year. Finally, during the mid-1980s, the lunchbox took a vacation from mainstream culture, disappearing entirely, followed soon after by the introduction of plastic lunch tubs, only to be replaced by unimaginative zippered nylon bags.
You can still buy metal lunchboxes on eBay, through various collector groups, and some other e-tailers on the Web. What's more, a few years ago, the Smithsonian deemed the lunchbox popular enough to merit its own special display. How cool is that?
I fondly remember the metal lunchboxes of my youth — the utilitarian containers that would carry my lunch one year and paper dolls and doll clothes the next. How about you?
