My kids are older and no longer of school age (not counting college, which, while perhaps still qualifying as education, is more like a place where my money goes to die than an institution to teach my kids), so we no longer have to go through the yearly end-of-summer ritual; shopping for school supplies. I kind of miss it. When I was in school, it was one of my favorite things to do. I never really disliked school, but I certainly liked not going more than the alternative. However, when the reality of a looming first day of school came around, the one thing I did look forward to was going to the stationary store and loading up on pens, pads, markers, rulers, and all other manner of supplies. I’m kind of a pen and pencil nut, so I always spent most of my attention on ensuring that I had a suitable array of writing implements with which to jot, sketch, and doodle across the school year.

I would always be on the lookout for the latest developments in school supply technology. In my school days, well before the advent of the digital age, these innovative products were much more tactile. The erasable pen came out when I was somewhere in middle school, and while the claims of erasability were significantly overblown, I had many of them bouncing around my book bag at any given moment. Crayon boxes with a build in sharpener? Damn straight. I’ll take the 128-color version, please. Protractor? Forget that. Give me the whole damn drafting kit replete with multiple compasses, triangles with all the vital acute angles represented, and is that a mechanical pencil I see? Don’t mind if I do.

But my all-time favorite school supply. The one I had my mother take me to store after store ins search of. The thing I could not possibly have attended my first year of middle school without was the single most significant advancement in paper organization and binding science at the time: the Trapper Keeper. To think that prior to the Trapper Keeper, you would have to carry multiple folders separately from your loose leaf binder. No built-in pen compartment. It didn’t just hold your stuff; it secured it. And it wasn’t the boring old blue canvas three-ring binder you used to have. Oh no, the Trapper Keeper came in styles! It was indeed the best of times.

With no more kids to shop for school supplies with, the start of school just isn’t the same anymore. I wonder what a vintage neon 80s graphics Trapper Keeper goes for on eBay these days? Maybe I’ll just go and find out.