Terri's Journal: Week Ten

I don’t think it’s fair to say that summer is winding down given that it’s only August 7^th, yet I’m hearing it all over. Summer as a season doesn’t even end officially until well into September but, since our society’s year revolves around the school year, it’s true what they say: August is the Sunday of summer. I only have two more weeks at the museum now. Two weeks after that I’m back at school. When you lay it out like that, it really does seem short.

I always run a tally in my head of the earliest “Back to School” ads of the year. This summer I think it was Zeller’s at the beginning of June. I remember being tortured by that as a kid even though I enjoyed school. “Why must these foul reminders sully my freedom by announcing its imminent demise,” I’d think to myself (so I was a touch precocious and melodramatic as a child, does this really surprise?). The worst one I heard of was my friend’s story from many years ago. She got off the bus after the last day of school and opened the mail box to find a single piece of junk mail - you guessed it, a back to school ad.

I thought I’d share some back to school ads from yesteryear with you in this post so that I may join in the cruelty (although I’ve heard that these ads have quite an opposite effect on parents. Strange that.) These are from the Coast News …

… in 1964 …

… in 1958 …

… and 1970.

You may want to click on the images for a better view.

Do you want to know the strange part about all those ads? I found them all in late August and early September issues. I suppose in our present culture that tries to get us out Christmas shopping shortly after Valentine’s Day, Back to School Advertisers need to jump the gun a bit too. Personally I’d prefer if no one told me school existed until the last week of August.

Terri