Submitted by Lynne T

Dots and Lines or Dots and Boxes was a fun way to waste time during bus rides, long classes, or anytime you had a willing opponent, paper and a writing utensil. There were a lot of fun strategies for trapping your opponent, although most people just assumed it was luck of the string. Did you know there’s a way to turn this into a gambling game by adding coins to the squares?

Submitted by Chantal H

Everybody had their secrets and everybody loved to share. We all had techniques for passing notes, like the stash slot in the back of the calculator, paper footballs, inside the Bic pen, etc.

Submitted by Jeremiah G

Dot Matrix Printer Paper is more of an epic fail because of all the times we had to reprint our papers because we accidentally ripped the page, but at the time of it’s invention it was a drastic improvement to all of it’s alternatives. Remember when you first got your Dot Matrix Printer and you didn’t have to hand-write or type out your paper anymore? Then when you managed to tear the pages apart and rip the dot matrix strips off of the side, you could make springy things by folding them.

Submitted by katsak

From Wikipedia:

1972 is a key year in the history of American lunch boxes. This is an important year because this is the supposed year the steel lunch box died.

In 1971-72, a concerned group of parents decided that metal lunch boxes could actually be used as weapons in school-yard brawls. With petitions signed, they marched all the way to the Florida State Legislature, and demanded “safety legislation” be passed. It eventually was passed, and other counties in Florida, and even other states adopted this legislation.

The migration to plastic was probably nearing anyway, and probably was as much a factor in the stoppage of metal lunch boxes as any law could have been. This is not to say that plastic quickly killed metal production. From the early plastic boxes in 1972, they stood in the shadow of metal boxes until 1987. 39% of all lunch box production from 1972–1987 was steel.

By the time the 1980s came, lunch box sales were still strong, but they were waning. Many popular licenses were around during this time, including Pac-Man, GI Joe, Dukes of Hazzard, The A-Team, Strawberry Shortcake, Knight Rider, and other characters.

As the decade drew towards the end, lunch box manufacturers simply stopped producing new boxes for the back-to-school season. Generally, it is accepted that Rambo, produced by KST, was the last lunch box of the golden era (1950–1987) to be sold. Lunch box production did not stop, but companies now moved to plastic and vinyl as a means of making lunch boxes. These boxes were generally solid colored with a label on one side and no other decoration beyond the thermos.

Who else would have been pissed if they’d known that they got a plastic lunch box, as opposed to the cool metal ones their older siblings had, all because of some goody-goody Tipper Gore-esque Mom who ruined it for us all? Especially since now-days the Hipster scene-kids are living our steel lunchbox dreams, with their Invader Zim or Emily the Strange lunch boxes.

Submitted by B Nelson

Whoa, dig that totally 80’s “Video Rock” theme on the Trapper Keeper above. What does that even mean? I guess Meade couldn’t afford the licensing for any MTV acts. Here’s another rad Trapper Keeper–I think this one’s from around 1984 or so. I remember a LOT of guys in my junior high school having this one:

VROOOM! Organization never looked so cool.

Y’know, about the only drawback to the Trapper Keeper as compared to the blue cloth-covered three ring binders is that it was awfully hard to scratch “AC/DC” or “VAN HALEN 4 EVER” on them.

Here’s a Trapper Keeper commercial from the 80’s, featuring two of the most clean-cut youths ever. Seriously, you are probably not wholesome enough to view this:

Is it me, or does the girl in this look like Lori Laughlin from Full House? Why do I know who she is? WHYYYYYY???