Lost lunchbox found at Virginia school after 42 years

UPI ^ | December 17, 2001 | Ben Hooper

[Red Badger]

Dec. 17 (UPI) -- A plumber working at a Virginia elementary school made a startling discovery: a Heathcliff lunchbox lost by a student more than 40 years earlier.

Roanoke City Public Schools said in a Facebook post that a plumber was doing maintenance at Fairview Elementary School and came across a metal lunchbox bearing images of the orange cartoon cat.

"Inside, we found a thermos that still smells like hot chocolate, an adorable drawing, and a tag with the student's name: Tracy Drain, who appears to have been in Mrs. Curry's class in Room 30," district officials wrote. "The lunchbox appears to have been made in the early 1980s."

The post eventually came to the attention of the correct Tracy Drain, who lost her lunchbox during her 4th grade year in 1982.

"I think it's amazing," Drain told WDBJ-TV. "If I would've been the person that found it, I would've put it on eBay, and it's finders keepers, losers weepers. But it's very interesting to be able to see it. As far as remembering it, I do not, but it has my mom's handwriting, which I'll treasure right here."

[RckyRaCoCo]

If there’s a Twinkie inside...just say’n

[Rio]

Very brave opening that Thermos.

[ansel12]

Kids used to be sent to school with a paper bag with unrefrigerated food, bologna, egg salad, tuna fish, maybe a fried egg sandwich that was fried, wrapped and thrown into the bag, leftover bacon on bread, what was weirder was coming home from school and eating breakfast leftovers that had been sitting on the stove all day.

[ClearCase_guy]

I remember having one of these way back in the 60s. After that, I think it was always a brown paper bag.

[Red Badger]

Ditto......................

[I-ambush]

Twinkie was still fresh.

[PGR88]

Girls start off with $2 lunchboxes as accessories

and move to $15,000 Hermes handbags.

[1Old Pro]

Kids used to be sent to school with a paper bag with unrefrigerated food, bologna

Yep

[Beowulf9]

Huh. I only ever got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=719mWVl9Nh4

[Beowulf9]

Wish they would’ve said where he found it. How did it go untouched for forty years? Where the heck was it?!

[chiller]

How’s this...

...my confirmation Bible was found sitting on top of a tall cabinet at my father’s funeral 55 years after it was misplaced.

[Red Badger]

He put it in a safe place..............

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“If I would’ve been the person that found it, I would’ve put it on eBay”

And Tracy Drain immediately put it up for sale on eBay.

[Red Badger]

https://www.wdbj7.com/2024/12/11/long-lost-lunchbox-returned-owner-over-40-years-later/

[Delta 21]

Thats a very LOW maintenance area.

[PGR88]

Wish they would’ve said where he found it. How did it go untouched for forty years? Where the heck was it?!

That nasty boy Tommy Doyle threw it behind the electrical breaker box in the cafeteria, after Tracy and her friends laughed at him for picking his nose in the cafeteria line (he says he was just scratching it), and for not combing his hair....

At least, that's how I imagine it played out.

[Hatteras]

I had Flipper... :-)

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I think I had those, too. When did they start putting characters on lunch boxes? I might have had a Roy Rogers or Lone Ranger, but I think they were plain or plaid in the late 50s and early 60s.