Before stretchy fabric book covers and plastic sleeves, we had the brown paper grocery bag!
Every September, out came the scissors, tape, and a stack of supermarket bags. You cut the bag open, folded the top and bottom to fit the textbook, tucked the covers into the ends, and somehow ended up with a perfectly serviceable book cover.
And the best part? That plain brown paper became your personal bulletin board — your name, doodles, band names, phone numbers, crushes, class schedules and whatever else you could squeeze onto it.
It protected the school’s textbook, cost absolutely nothing, and gave us something to do during a boring class.
Who remembers covering all their schoolbooks this way? And did yours stay neat — or was it covered in writing by the end of the first week?