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15 July 2009
Taking America to Lunch: the Smithsonian/American History's lunchbox exhibit. What lunchboxes did you have (or lust after)?
Neat stuff! I really like the Green Turtle cigar tin. The Plaid and Psychedelic boxes are cool too.
The only two I remember having were (was? are?) a tin Holly Hobby and a vinyl one that had kind of jean and bandanna patchwork design on it. Most of the time we used brown paper bags due to lack of money.
Wow, I just realized I never had a lunch box. Yooz guyz is lucky. I used a paper bag and waxed paper. I would put it in my briefcase. Yes, as a small school child, I carried a briefcase to school. It was black and quite a bit larger than me.
I had a she-ra lunchbox, although when I was older I used a brown-bag for a while, and then a plaid lunchbox (much like the one there) I picked up at a vintage shop after I got my license and was able to shop outside the confines of the local mall and kmart. (we didn't have target until I was in college, and the first walmart in the Buffalo area opened when I was like 17)
The ones I remember having are The Muppets (1st grade), Little Orphan Annie (def. 2nd grade), Holly Hobby (1 or 2nd grade), Dukes of Hazard (3rd grade, and which my mother only agreed to let me have because Daisy Duke was on there, so it wasn't all boys, which would have been nixed as being too tomboyish). I think I also ended up with a Strawberry Shortcake one year, because the store was out of all the cool ones. Boo.
For the longest time, an old one of my brother's was kept out in the garage, storing nails and bolts and stuff. It was a Chan Clan lunchbox, and hoo boy, was it not PC.
I can clearly remember my "Peanuts" lunch box. I think something else followed, perhaps "Scooby Do", I'm really not sure. My kids had vinyl lunch boxes, I think my oldest had Sesame Street. Even he doesn't remember.
My first one has Flipper on it. I say 'has' because my dad still keeps it in his garage to hold little bits and pieces of electrical repair stuff. The matching Thermos is long gone though, it had a glass liner that broke when I was in 2nd grade.
My mom used to lie about her income, which was sufficient to get us reduced price school lunches, so that we'd get them completely free. She claimed the secret to them not questioning her income was the fact that she always filled the form out in Spanish.
I have some Hello Kitty bento boxes that are pretty sweet, too, but not as good for keeping wet stuff wet and dry stuff dry and cold stuff cold while the hot stuff gets reheated as the Laptop Lunchboxes.
Back in the 60's, I had a really cool lunchbox that was covered with all these paintings of imaginary spacecraft. Sort of along the lines of all those cool illustrations you used to see about man colonizing space and whatnot. It was the kind with the rounded lid where the thermos fit in. No name brand or movie tie-in. Just space ships galore.
And, Dark Forest...I lived for Fireball-XL5 as a kid. Loved that show.
I had a hand-me-down peanuts lunch box that I used in second grade until the vinyl hinge tore. Usually I bought my lunch at school anyway, but I still wanted the experience.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
