A Jarful of Gold

Full disclosure this post has nothing to do with St. Patrick's Day. I know. It's odd. I mean tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day and the first image that pops into my mind is pot full of gold. So, if I'm not writing about St. Patrick's Day, what's up?

Well, last night I packed my bags for the VSLA conference. In addition to my carry on, I chose my backpack. For nine years, I carried my backpack to and from school. But not this year.

This year I chose the tote bag The Silver Unicorn gifted me at teacher appreciation day last year. It says, "No Shelf Control," and truer words have never been said about me.

In order to get the backpack ready for my books, my electronics, and anything else that wouldn't fit into my carry on, I needed to clean out my backpack.

Picture nine years of odds and ends from an elementary classroom in one bag with lots of pockets. What did I find?

-white out
-white paint
-sticky notes
-stickers
-nametags
-books
-pens
-flower jar
-handfuls of gold coins

No, not real gold coins. The fake ones. Last year when we read Rajani LaRocca's Seven Golden Rings, I gave each student seven golden coins. If they wanted a clue to solve the math riddle, they could cash in a coin for a clue. 

I piled all the gold coins into the flower jar, set it on my nightstand, and kept packing.

Before bed, my husband said, "Why is there a jar full of golden coins next to the bed?"

I answered that I'd found them in my backpack, which led to memory upon memory of reminiscing about stories centered around my backpack. Right away he laughed about how in college he offered to carry my backpack to be a gentleman and almost broke his back trying to lift it. This was way back when paper textbooks were still a thing.

We reminisced memory after memory piling up… worth so much more than a jarful of gold.