By the time you hit senior year, your back is basically trashed from carrying around three-inch binders and massive textbooks for three years straight. But as soon as the weather gets warm and senior spring officially hits, the heavy-duty backpacks start to disappear. In their place is something you would usually find in a preschool cubby: tiny, neon, bright, colored bags featuring the faces of Lightning McQueen, Winnie the Pooh, among others.
Picking your character is a high-stakes move. “I’ve been obsessed with Lightning McQueen and the Cars movies since I was younger,” Lila Southiere (Class I) said. “I had [it on] my birthday cake for so long. I thought it was a good culmination of all my childhood years.”
Carina Grossman (Class I) went a similar route, picking a character that hits close to home. “I knew I wanted something Winnie the Pooh because it was my favorite book and character as a kid, and I wanted to embody that kid as much as possible,” she said. She even brought up that famous Pooh quote that’s been all over every mind lately: “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
Alling Lubitz (Class I) picked hers based on a random wave of nostalgia. “I chose my backpack because I was a super big fan of the Tinkerbell Pixie Hollow movies growing up and randomly remembered them while searching,” she said. The tradition is a blend of personal taste and group identity. “People are able to pick their own backpacks for themselves but also be a part of the group,” she said.
While the bags are a fun visual, the actual swap triggers a deeper realization that the clock is ticking. Southiere felt the shift the second she swapped her bag out. “I felt so weird doing it because I was like, ‘Oh wow, it feels very senior spring.’ It makes me feel like the end is actually coming soon.” Lubitz agreed that the timing of the switch adds to that feeling. “I feel they do [mark a transition] as we get them right after spring break and as we head into our last quarter at Nobles, which is obviously a big deal to everyone graduating,” she said.
To the underclassmen, seeing a group of eighteen-year-olds walking around with Frozen backpacks might look a little funny, but the seniors see it as a badge of honor. Southiere said, “It goes to show how we just want to enjoy our time, it’s not about the academics as much, it’s more about being with each other.”
Even though the backpacks are a personal choice and a way to show off a specific brand of nostalgia, the real magic happens when they are seen together. When standing in front of the castle for pictures, the class looks less like a group of stressed-out students and more like a community of people who actually grew up together. “Taking pictures in front of the castle with all kinds of friends means something, as trivial as it sounds,” Grossman said. “Ultimately, we all are having the same emotional reaction to the period of time we’re in.”
At the end of the day, the backpacks are more than just a place to store school supplies. They are a bridge between who we were ten years ago and the adults we are about to become. By leaning into the stuff we loved as kids, we are finding a way to navigate the “big goodbye” of high school together. It’s a small, colorful reminder that even though we are moving on to bigger things, we will always have these weird, shared memories and our tiny Lightning McQueen backpacks to keep us connected.
