School Supplies

Somewhere in the last weeks of August before the September of my entry into grade 4, my Mom gave me five bucks and sent me to the store to buy some school supplies. You know, the usual necessities: pencils, notebooks (ruled and unruled), foolscap, that stuff. I came back from the store with a $5 pencil sharpener, because I had to have it. I guess I was a ten-year-old who appreciated design.

It had a lever that vacuum-mounted it to your desk. It had a pull-out, clamping self-feeding mechanism so you didn't have to push the pencil in. It had a little drawer to catch the shavings for easy disposal. It was grey. I couldn't find an image, but picture something just slightly more up to date than this one (i.e., with more 60s smoothness):

 

 Another trait of the sharpener, which belonged to pretty much everything you could buy back then, was that it wasn't designed and built to fall apart after a few uses. I mean, I used that thing for decades. I wish I still had it, I have dull pencils all over the place.