Starting to school

With all of the talk on the news and in the press about how much the sales of school clothing and supplies will be "off" this year--I have to confess my thought is "Big Deal!" Now I realize that the merchants depend on parents--grandparents buying little Johnny & Suzie all of the cutesy trendy things they have weighted their shelves down with and I don't wish them a loss of income BUT whatever happened to making do with what you have??
Growing up most people felt very fortunate to get a new pair of shoes to start to school in --for many of us if a relative or older sister had outgrown a pair then they would polished them up and you were the proud owner of a second hand pair of shoes. Mom would often go to the fabric store and buy STACKS of fabric to sew our new clothes from. She was so creative and could make a calico dress look like a designer creation---at least I thought she could. She would sew new shirts for Mick and Mike--adding pearl snaps and all--
She gave the girls a hair permanent--usually a Toni Or LILT--do you remember those? Oh, my they stunk to high heaven but you had these pretty curls by the time it was over. One time my Aunt gave my cousin a home permanent and got sidetracked by something else and forgot to "time it" correctly, she had some curling rods to just fall off--hair attached! Looked like she had the mange!! I always thought of that and would perch myself right in front of the clock--taking no chances..
Our school supplies were not at all complicated--notebook theme paper, a couple of composition books--pencils and later on ink fountain pins along with the bottle of ink, ruler and crayons and if you needed it a note book to carry it all in or maybe a book satchel. Think they use back packs today.
Stating ALL of this to make my case--some things were just simpler in the old days- no hassle having to dress in the latest fad--a lot less expensive and we were just as happy with what we had as the children of today are. Yea, I confess some new shoes every year would have been a nice touch BUT that would have made us different from the other kids ---not a good thing!!