Page 33 - CBA 1997 YEARBOOK

Bookbags
The Evaporation of Student Baggage
Walking down the freshmen bags, slightly
halls, you tend to notice
that the bookbags vary
greatly in color, design,
decoration, and, most of
all, size.
Junior high schoolers
are notorious for drag­
ging mammoth bags up
the stairs and of acciden­
tally smacking each oth­
er in the faces with their
enormous L.L. Bean
backpacks. This often
leads us to wonder
where they purchase
such large bags. The lo­
cal coroner's office?
Then there are the
smaller than those of
their younger counter­
parts, which can be rec­
ognized by the tell-tale
white-out artwork and
noisy keychains.
This is not to under­
mine the obvious crea­
tivity of the individual.
The uniqueness of each
bookbag illustrates the
diversity of the students
and, at the same time,
show the latest fad or
trend in bookbag appar­
el. (What would a back­
pack be without your
best friend's jersey num­
ber or your true love's
name printed in perma­
nent marker?)
Many juniors and sen­
iors have traded in their
white-out wands, fabric
paint, and cute little but­
tons for a new (and pos­
sibly less practical) breed
of bookbags — those tiny
backpacks. These tiny
backpacks have been be­
gun to evolve before our
eyes. First, the micro-
Jansport was hot, then
came the fluffy little ted-
dybear packs.
So why do bookbags
seem to evaporate as the
students get older?
Could it be that we just
learn how to carry our
books efficiently or do
we eventually master the
art of the three-minute
dash to our lockers be­
tween periods? We may
never know the reason,
but we know from ex­
perience that the gigantic
backpacks give us gigan­
tic back aches, and that
the tiny ones can carry
just so much.
Danielle Charpentier
You'll find a little bit of eve­
rything in the CBA hallways
— bags of all shapes, styles,
and colors. (Trust us on the
colors thing!)
Bookbags 29