Maybe it was just a style that eventually went out of fashion or just pure practicality, but for some reason when I was in grade school all the kids wore bread wrappers on their feet. Not as footwear, but over our socks before we put our feet into our winter boots. I remember the floor in the back of the classroom in second grade filled with boots and bread wrappers sticking out of them.
For me it was purely practical to wear bread wrappers over my socks. My buckle boots had a hole near the tongue and when I stepped in deep snow my socks would always get wet. The bread sacks solved that problem by keeping my feet warm and dry. I never felt silly having bread wrappers sticking out of the top of my boots because all the kids were doing it.
But like any fashion trend, there were the kids who displayed their superiority with high-end bread sacks. I recall seeing one classmate with large, multi-color dots on the bread sack protruding out the top of her boots. We all knew that label — it was a Wonder Bread sack, the more expensive white bread in those days. Next to that, I was a nobody with my cheap store brand bread sacks.
Eventually winter would end and my humiliation would melt with the snow. We traded our snow boots and bread sacks for high top tennis shoes. Somewhere between second grade and junior high the bread sack fashion trend ran its course. We stopped putting bread sacks over our socks when we wore our winter boots. I never did understand how it started or why it stopped. Fashion trends are one of the great mysterious of the world.
I’d love to hear if your childhood included bread sacks in your boots.
This post was originally published March 25, 2020.
© 2020, CGThelen
The Next Half Century 
Love this!
We also wore bread sacks in our boots. I was a kid who didn’t care much for style or what other people thought. I clearly remember pulling my feet out of the bread sacks and bread crumbs falling all over. The other kids laughed at me because I hadn’t bothered to empty the crumbs out first. Apparently, bread sacks were fine, crumbs were not.