10th in a series of letters to my hometown.
Dear West Plains,
It is almost back-to-school time. The advertisements have begun, and Walmart's seasonal aisle is filled to the brim with crayons, markers, No. 2 pencils, notebooks, and backpacks. Even after raising four children through their school years, back-to-school season still has a way of opening a door to memories from the 1980s that have permanently taken up residence somewhere in my brain.
West Plains is still a small, quiet town. Not that much has changed since I was in high school. That means some of the same challenges must still face today's kids.
Back in the days of neon colors, the Jordache look, Calvin Klein jeans, and the ever-classic Ralph Lauren polo shirt with the collar popped just right, there was no Amazon or online shopping. There were mail-order catalogs, of course, but trusting your entire back-to-school wardrobe to the Sears and Roebuck catalog felt like an unnecessary gamble. I wasn't that brave.
My budget was limited. My wish list was enormous.
There was only one remedy for back-to-school shopping when you were a teenager growing up in West Plains.
Road trip.
Maybe there were families who made the hundred-plus-mile drive to Springfield several times a year, but mine didn't, and neither did my friends' families. If I got the chance to go to Battlefield Mall for back-to-school shopping, it wasn't just a shopping trip.
It was an adventure.
An odyssey, if you will.
The trip itself took planning. My mother drove a big gas-guzzling car, and she would set aside money from several paychecks just to cover the gasoline there and back. Then there was the expense of actually buying clothes. By high school, I worked part-time, so I could contribute a little. My dad, who lived in California, faithfully sent me a couple hundred dollars each year for school clothes and supplies.
Putting together enough money for a successful shopping trip required almost as much planning as a small town trying to fund a new fire truck.
And the mall….
The mall in the 1980s wasn't a half-empty building holding onto a handful of familiar stores. It was the epicenter of everything that was cool. Every outfit I had admired for months on the pages of Seventeen and Glamour magazine seemed to be waiting for me under one roof.
My budget wasn't anywhere close to supporting the closet full of Ralph Lauren, Benetton, Esprit, Calvin Klein, and DKNY that I dreamed about. But every year I managed to buy one carefully chosen designer piece that usually swallowed a quarter of my budget. The rest of my wardrobe came from clearance racks, bargain bins, discount stores, and whatever was marked down enough to fit the budget.
Shoes, however, were non-negotiable.
You could fake almost anything else, but not your shoes.
My first-day outfit was planned with military precision. The designer item was paired with bargain jeans or an off-brand sweater that looked close enough if you didn't stare too long. Everything had to work together.
I don't remember carrying a backpack, and I don't remember many other students carrying one either. My books rode to school in a duffel bag. The Trapper Keeper, however, was practically mandatory. Notebook paper, pencils, folders, spiral notebooks in every imaginable color...those could thankfully all be found at Walmart.
Back-to-school season felt enormous.
It seemed as though the first day could determine your entire social standing for the coming year.
The funny thing is, everyone else was just as worried about themselves.
The popular kids stayed popular. The quiet kids stayed quiet. There was never a magical Sixteen Candles moment waiting around the corner where suddenly everything changed. Still, every August I believed.
I believed my Molly Ringwald moment was coming. Maybe this would be the year. Maybe this would be the year someone noticed. Maybe this would be the year everything was different.
It never quite happened that way.
What did happen was something much better.
The halls of West Plains High School gave me friendships that have lasted far longer than any pair of designer jeans ever could. The girls who passed folded notes across the classroom now send text messages instead. We've traded walking in endless circles around the halls of WPHS for sending Instagram reels, but we still laugh at the same old stories.
As another school year begins, I imagine today's students are standing in Walmart wondering if they have the right backpack, the right shoes, or the right clothes. I hope someone tells them what it took me years to learn.
Forty years from now, they won't remember which jeans they wore on the first day of school.
They'll remember who walked beside them down the hallway.
Laura (Wright) Jones is a former West Plains resident and a writer now living in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley with her husband Jeff and their two Morkies Jonesy and Mookie. Her column, “Dear West Plains,” is a love letter to her hometown and the stories that shaped her. Her email address is laura.jones062869@gmail.com
