School began for most towns in late August, and before the opening day several organizations, including barber shops such as the Cave here in Groton, hosted backpack giveaways and even free haircuts.

Helping kids get ready to return to school is a wonderful gesture. For some of these youngsters this will be the first normal school year they’ve ever experienced.

Backpacks are ubiquitous. From kindergarten to college students, everyone seems to be carrying them. Even young sailors at Sub School walk around the base with them strapped on.

I noticed, by the way, that the Navy has added backpack straps to the seabag. I wish they had done that in 1970. When I left boot camp, I packed my seabag and hoisted it up on my shoulder. (I was younger then; a lot younger!)

My question is why are backpacks so necessary for students? As a youngster, the only time I wore a pack it was made of canvas and had the seal of the Boy Scouts printed on it. After the 1960 jamboree I received a leather patch that World War II Navy veteran Dominic Pianka at Champion Shoe Repair sewed on for me.

I don’t recall in elementary school carrying many things to or from school. Maybe a spelling or math book for homework, and there wasn’t a lot of that. In junior high and high school, males tended to carry whatever books they needed under their left arms.

Gym clothes were rolled up in towels. Girls generally carried their books in front of them.

When I see school children today with enormous backpacks, I wonder what is in them. I’m told, in fact, that some secondary students have two backpacks: one for A-Day and one for B.

I’m concerned about what the weight is doing to the backs of younger students. Medical experts recommend that the backpack shouldn’t exceed 20% of a child’s weight without straining the shoulders, back, or neck. I watched one sixth grade boy sling his pack on his back and go right over backward!

When I taught middle school history in Groton, I used to issue the American history textbook to my students and tell them to take it home and leave it there. I also warned them not to lose it - they were very expensive. If we were going to use the text in class, I had a classroom set. Those books weighed six and a half pounds!

In the classroom, backpacks were at best an annoyance and possibly dangerous in terms of tripping during a fire drill. Many teachers asked students to put their backpacks in one corner of the room. I know at one point the rule was to leave them in the locker.

However, those lockers aren’t very big and they may not be close to students’ classes, especially in high school. I was fortunate for a couple of years at Fitch Middle when I was assigned to Room D-111, a former elementary school classroom. One full wall was a closet with several folding doors.

There was a shelf for lunch boxes and coat hooks for outerwear. There was plenty of room for backpacks and other assorted belongings.

Cleaning it out at the end of the year could be interesting. Once I even found a flannel Polly Flinders nightgown, possibly left over from a sleepover at somebody’s house. Nobody laid claim to the expensive garment and so it went into lost and found.

Of course, there are things youngsters need to bring home every day. More and more schools are issuing Chromebooks, which should eliminate the need for some texts.

Students were and probably still are issued agenda books, which are about the size of a medium city’s telephone directory. In junior high and high school, we got way with a 15 cent assignment pad that would fit in a shirt pocket.

Several teachers have students maintain class binders. I did also and ensured that every handout I distributed was three-hole punched to go into a three-ring binder. It is too easy to lose papers out of file folders.

(I had laugh about handouts one day. A paraprofessional with whom I had worked for years maintained a binder of all my papers. She dated each one. On one occasion she smiled at me and informed me that I was behind schedule. I had distributed that same handout two days earlier last year.)

Once a marking period, I would pass out an inventory sheet and a couple of days later I’d collect the binders and grade them on completeness. I assured my students that everything they needed to study for an exam would be in their notebook. I asked them to bring it to class, but it wasn’t necessary to bring it home every night.

Near the end of my career, I began putting most of my handouts online.

Especially at the beginning of the year there are various forms that parents need to see and sign. The challenge is to find them in the backpack, some of which resemble Fibber McGee’s closet.

I remember one sixth-grade boy who lost two permission slips for an after-school activity. When he asked for a third slip I paperclipped it to his shirt. He said that he’d take it off as soon as he was on the bus.

“Oh no you won’t!” said his eighth-grade sister.

The signed permission slip was returned the next day.

Backpacks are likely here to stay. I simply wish they could be lightened. After all, these youngsters are going to school, not on a bivouac!

Robert F. Welt of Mystic was a longtime teacher in the Groton School System.