Back-to-School Just Hit Different in the 90s & 2000s

From Lisa Frank folders and gel pens to that unmistakable first-day-of-school smell, some memories never really leave us.

The Weird Magic of Back to School

When we were kids, we were never really excited for the end of summer. But there was always something exciting about getting ready to go back to school.

Maybe it was the new supplies, new clothes, finding out your teacher is the exact one you hoped for, wondering who would be in class with you, and seeing friends you hadn’t seen all summer.

Now, even decades later, we can be instantly transported back to those memories by some of the most ordinary things.

The School Supply Aisle Was an Event

Walking into Walmart, Target, or Staples in the 90s and 2000s during back-to-school season was like a fever dream of color and choices.

The different options for Lisa Frank notebooks, pencils, folders, and more took at least a 30-minute sit-down to decide what pattern you were going to pick. Did you want dolphins? Unicorns? Puppies? And of course the amazing rainbow cheetah print.

Having to decide whether English would get the green folder and Math the red, or whether Science should be green and English orange.

Pencil boxes that held more pencil toppers and a variety of cool erasers than they did actual pencils.

And of course, convincing your parents you needed every single color of Milky Pen gel pens, because your notes were going to look so cool in the pastel pink and glitter green.

For those first few days, every notebook, folder, and pencil was still perfect.

You had to choose the backpack

Not just any backpack would do; it had to be the backpack.

The backpack was your introduction to your classmates; it told them more about you in the first five minutes than anything else, especially if you had the matching lunchbox or a character lunchbox.

Backpacks showed your personality. They had Spice Girls, Rugrats, Barney, Disney Princess, JanSport, L.L. Bean (with or without your name embroidered), Power Rangers, and so many more. You could make a new best friend in the first week based on your backpack alone.

What’s funny is my favorite backpack was a light, super-soft denim with a drawstring closure and a metal-clip flap to keep people out. It was the perfect size and held just the right amount of stuff. But the best part was drawing and having my friends draw or write things on it. Honestly, I still wish I had this backpack today!

The First-Day Outfit

I think I can safely say that most of us spent more time picking out our first-day-of-school outfit than on any other day of the year, aside from picture day.

We went through our closets and tried to decide whether we would pick an outfit that said Cher from Clueless, Joey from Dawson’s Creek, Lizzie from Lizzie McGuire, or Nirvana Grunge. We got everything ready and set it out the night before so we could make the best impression possible.

It may not have truly mattered what we picked, but it mattered to us when we walked through the school doors.

And then there was the smell

Not really pleasant or unpleasant.

It smelled like recently waxed floors, plastic backpacks, the school cafeteria prepping for lunch, pencil shavings, crayons, and new textbooks.

You can almost smell it just thinking about it. Or it hits you just when you least expect it, when you visit a school to watch your niece in her school play.

Seeing everyone again

We may have dreaded the alarm blaring in the morning, waiting at the bus stop in the August heat, and the fact that it meant summer was truly over.

But it meant we got to see our best friend again, who ended up in the same class as us. Meeting your teacher, who you heard was the best one in all of third grade. Finding your desk and discovering the new kid is now your desk neighbor.

And suddenly, the fact that summer was at an end wasn’t as bad as you expected.

We didn’t know we would miss it

We didn’t think anything of these moments. To us, it was just another Monday morning, surrounded by notebooks, textbooks with brown paper covers, friends, and the class pet.

Lunch with your friends wasn’t something you were consciously trying to remember at the time. The new Lisa Frank notebook or Power Rangers pencil case wasn’t nostalgia; it was just a notebook and pencil case.

However, all these seemingly ordinary little moments became part of our story of growing up.

What will our kids remember?

Our kids’ childhoods will look different from ours, and that is okay.

We have memories of watching a science tape on the large CRT TV brought in by the AV Club.

Someday, they might have memories of watching a video on how a cell works on their school-issued iPad.

We don’t need to remake our own childhoods for our children in the same way. We can remember what made ours so special while allowing them to form their own versions of those ordinary memories.

Because no matter what, these memories always transport us back home.

Tell us your story

What weirdly specific back-to-school memory do you still remember?

• The backpack?

• The cafeteria food?

• The class pet?

• Something incredibly random nobody but you seems to remember?

Tell us your story in the comments. We'd love to know which back-to-school memories have stayed with you.