I grew up in a family of seven people. There was my mom and dad, my three brothers, me and my little sister, and an ever-present dog. My mom was a teacher and my dad was a stationary engineer who worked shifts. Our meals had to be planned, and lunch was no exception. Five of us kids went to school with a packed lunch. At the time, my mom seemed to only need coffee, cigarettes, and spearmint gum. But dad, no matter what shift he worked, always had a lunch bag.

When we were old enough, my sister and I would make all the lunches for the week. Sunday night would see us organizing, assembling, and freezing up to thirty sandwiches to get our growing hockey-playing brothers and ourselves through the week. Mom made sweets like ginger bread, cinnamon loaf, date squares, marble cake and other delicious treats to add, along with making sure there were juice boxes and fruit. We didn’t make sandwiches for dad, as he would often take leftovers or mom would make his sandwiches. His shifts meant that he wasn’t always leaving in the mornings – and at least one third of the time, he was just getting home as we were all leaving for the day.

For many, many mornings of my life, my siblings and I assembled our lunch from the frozen sandwiches my sister and I had made, the sweets and treats my mother had made, and the drinks and fruits that were provided in the kitchen.

I remember packing lunches, but I don’t remember my first lunch box. I’m sure it had Barbie or some other popular figure of the day on it. Just as I’m sure there were many more after that. School lunchboxes that were used hard, broken, eventually discarded and left no imprint on my memory as a daily conveyance of sustenance. But I was young, and I don’t remember much of that time – let alone my lunchbox. But I do remember the brown paper bags that dominated the majority of my school lunches throughout my tween and teen years and into my early twenties as I went to university.

Today, we have a place where we keep our earth-friendly cloth shopping bags, which is somewhere near the spot where we keep the dwindled supply of plastic bags that we may still have. When I grew up, there was a space where we kept our brown paper bags.

It was a fractal of sorts. A huge brown paper bag with a variety of smaller, meticulously and consistently folded brown paper bags nestled within it. Everything from the full grocery bag size to the small candy bags they used to sell for twenty-five cents when I grew up, and all the sizes in between. It didn’t strike me as anything strange that many of the bags in the big brown paper bag-of-bags were from the liquor store. I had no context for that at the time and I was more concerned about the bags than I was about where they came from or what they originally transported.

This bag-of-bags was an extremely useful resource.

I remember getting a bag to cut open and repurpose as wrap for a mailed package. I remember the bags being used to hold spiced flour mixture to toss chicken in before frying. I remember using brown paper bags to line the bottom of baking tins for cinnamon loafs when waxed paper was not to be found in the cupboard and parchment was a froufrou not yet in common use. But most of all, I remember putting my hand in that big bag of brown paper bags to get one for my lunch. And of knowing, just by touch, which ones my dad had previously used to pack his lunch.

Its texture was different from the others. Creased, weathered, and worn – but not broken, split, or torn. The many fillings and foldings were all done with care and concern for this lowly vessel of an all-important cargo. It held food, fuel for the physical machine, for the energy he had to burn to earn for our clan.

The bag had the feel of soft leather. This was in the days before microfiber, fleather, and the plethora of fabrics I enjoy and can identify today. The closest thing my experience at the time would let me liken it to was a shammy. It was soft; with no easily discernible grain to let you even identify the source as leather or something other. As soon as I stuck my hand in that bag of bags and felt the softest one, I would take it and pack my lunch.

I liked the feel of it, its softness, the creases, and the care with which it was used. The fact that it had weathered so much but still remained intact – that it was unbroken, but broken in. It was a little thing, a small thing, but a thing that stuck with me. And those bags taught me something.

Those bags taught me value. They taught me recycling before I knew that word. Those bags taught me that even the cheapest, lowest, or most insignificant of items were useful. Those bags taught me about respect for ordinary stuff.

Those bags taught me to use things with care, even if they are cheap and plentiful. Those bags taught me that care can makes things soft and comforting.

Those bags also influenced me and inspired me. When I look at the crafts I make, I realize that almost all of them include something that was used, broken, or destined for discarding. Nothing is new except my desire to put those items together into something else. I generally give the first of whatever small project I make to my parents. They have always encouraged my talent in whatever way it manifested itself.

And they have also taught me.

Somewhere in my education I learned that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but from my parents I learned that it can be reused or remade into something that can be enjoyed.

 

© CRodgers

(Note: This was originally written a few years back and my dad did get to read this before he passed in 2018.)