Kathie writes:

"My only memory of lunchboxes comes from when I was in about the 3rd grade. I had one of the plastic kind that had the same amount of room in the top as in the bottom. The top had some kind of device that held the thermos, while the bottom held the food. It was blue. I hated it. No one else had one like it. Everyone carried metal ones with cartoon or TV characters. I especially envied a particular child that carried a Monkees lunchbox. I was in love with Davy Jones (what little girl wasn't at that time?).

"I went back and forth between Davy and Mickey, myself. Mostly I brownbagged it too. You wonder where I got my affection for lunchtime? I got it from my mother who made my lunch every day from grades 1-12 except for when fried chicken was the hot lunch. In jr. high, I was a latchkey kid and, for a while, I'd put my key in my lunch sack and then forget it was there and throw it away. Drove my mom nuts.

"But I digress...

"Anyway, I've owned exactly two lunchpails in my life. When I was in 5th grade, I desperately wanted a Monkees lunchbox. My mom thought this a frivolous expense. But my birthday is at the end of August, right before school, and my Aunt Gladys and Uncle Bob gave me the coveted lunchbox. It wasn't metal, it was that cardboard with plastic covering. White background. This particular aunt and uncle had a knack for buying me gifts that my parents wouldn't consider. Another time, they gave me a subscription to the TV Guide.

"As the years have progressed, my mom and Uncle Bob have had a major falling out. One time I went to a family function and my mom wanted to know how I could possibly be nice to Uncle Bob. What had he ever done to me, I asked. Too many gifts given with consideration to turn my back on him because of some stuff between him and my mother I still don't fully understand.

"When I was a senior in high school, I convinced a bunch of girlfriends that we should have lunchpails one last time. So, as seniors, there were quite a few of us that ate out of lunchboxes in the senior wing of the cafeteria. There's a picture in my senior annual of our lunchboxes stacked on top of each other with me and a couple of my friends beside them. My lunchbox is the "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" one.

"I wish I still had those lunchboxes...but, alas... "