Brown steel

Little One came bounding into my office yesterday afternoon with his latest treasure: a crumpled brown paper bag. It seems that his friend Opa R had supplied him with some rolling stock for his new train set (actually my brother’s old one), and he had an idea for the paper bag. We can use it to make popcorn, he said. I smiled and absently told him that was an excellent idea, and gave it no more thought.

When I was a young girl, my uncle worked for American Can Company. In addition to cans—they pioneered the aluminum can (they’re now called Alcoa)—they made lots and lots of steel cans, and as a sideline, steel lunchboxes. Every Christmas, our family would exchange a box of luxury paper goods from my father’s employer (we called it the “bumf box”), for two steel lunch boxes from his family. We were the envy of all our classmates, as we had the latest, most coveted lunchboxes in the multi-purpose room, and we had a new one every year. Remember, they were made of steel somewhere outside of Kansas. They were built as solid as a Chevy, and a good lunchbox could make it through your entire elementary career if you took care of it. The thermos was the limiting factor, being made of glass.

The year before he retired, my uncle sent along the cream of the crop: a Snoopy doghouse for me (I loved Snoopy when I was 11), and a Land of the Giants lunchbox for my brother. I loved my lunchbox, so when I dropped the thermos and heard the telltale crack, I wept. Its replacement was an orange vinyl Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus lunchbox. The black plastic handle broke early on, to be replaced by one made of clothesline using my mother’s new macramé skills (hey, it was the 70s). My brother, however, was more stoic. When his Land of the Giant thermos met its demise after three full years (he was really careful), he refused another lunchbox, and switched instead to a brown paper bag.

Freudian analysts might say it had something to do with a teenager wanting something to do with his father (Daddy still worked at the pulp mill, where they made Kraft paper for the brown bags), but I think it was a question of convenience. My fastidious brother managed to make a single paper bag last an entire semester: it went to school with his peanut butter sandwich (Skippy creamy, grape jelly), and came home folded in thirds in the left rear pocket of his Levis 503s (more than once it got washed with the jeans, and yet he still used it afterwards). I recall how we admired it on the last day of school, all soft and leathery from the wear, before we finally threw it out.

My mother had bought a package of small paper bags, thinking she would have to replace them frequently, but he only used half a dozen or so (there was a mishap with an overweight bully that caused the messy demise of both bag and PBJ). When I moved out, my mother placed the bundle in the box of things she was sure I would need (one in a continuum of confusing gifts), and I’ve been moving with them every since. They’ve finally found a use recently as a way to pop real popcorn in the microwave. Thrift runs in my family, as I reuse them until they’re brittle and singed before chucking them in the compost bin.

I found a bright shiny metal lunchbox at the thrift store two years ago, and Little One used it happily. Unpainted metal, he could drum loudly on it, stick stickers on it, and generally bang it around with impunity (we use stainless steel thermoses). When the plastic handle inevitably broke, his kindergarten teacher wove a new one out of bright orange cotton. I fixed the hinge a half-dozen times before giving up, and switched him to the ubiquitous-at-a-Waldorf-school basket. But he didn’t like it, since the handle didn’t fit in his cubby. I toyed with the brown paper bag, but given what he did to Detroit steel, that didn’t bode well for our forests, so I grabbed an oversized dishtowel, placed his lunch in the middle and tied up the corner. It serves as a lovely tablecloth when he unwraps it, and when it comes home muddy, I can throw it in the wash.

I found Little One’s paper bag in the kitchen this morning, quasi-folded and tucked behind the canister of popcorn. Soft and leathery, it reminded me of my brother. Call it Freudian, but we’ll pop popcorn in it until it can give no more, and then quietly bury it in the compost to give it back.