Celebrating Fill Our Staplers Day

One never knows what will become fodder for a family history story.  Today's designation as Fill Our Staplers Day turned my thoughts to the two staplers we use in our home.  One is old, the other even older.

This older stapler comes from my childhood home.  I don't remember using it when I was living at home (but then I don't remember using a stapler at all when I was younger).  I don't know its history, either, but I suspect my father bought it when the need arose.  It came to me when my siblings and I were clearing our parents' home nearly 20 years ago.  Though sometimes temperamental, I love using this old, sturdy, reliable Swingline.

The engraving on the front tells me it's a Swingline Speed Stapler 3.  Information on the bottom indicates it was made by Speed Products Co., Inc., of Long Island City, New York.  According to several patent numbers the inventor was Stephen A. Crosby and the assignee was Speed Products Co.  The patents were registered in 1941.

The box of staples that were with the stapler were purchased from Cross Office Suppliers, 1916 Youngstown Road, Warren, Ohio.  It's still nearly full.  I guess we didn't staple much when I was a kid, which may explain why I don't remember using it.  (It gets plenty of use these days.)

This Bostitch is our old stapler.  We bought it at Sam's Club about 25 years ago.  It was sold with six boxes of staples.  It still works but the hinge at the back is broken so I have to lift the top to put paper in place to staple it. 

Our preschool-age younger daughter, Brenna, was very interested in this little gadget when we brought it home.  I told her how it worked and what it did then handed it over to her.  She gathered paper, markers, scissors, and stapler.  At first she stapled one piece of paper (many times) just for the fun of pressing the lever and finding a staple in the paper.  But it wasn't long before we were gifted with little books and booklets, some of them in envelopes she had made by folding and stapling paper.  Little treasures.  I realized the true value of this purchase:  it occupied my curious pre-schooler and also fueled her creativity. 

One day not long after acquiring the stapler we had visitors.  Brenna was willing to sit and visit only so long and then her creative mind and energetic body insisted she play.  She busied herself cutting and folding paper, stapling along the sides to make envelopes, then putting little gifts inside.  One of the visitors noticed this use of staples and suggested that we might want to put the stapler away so she wouldn't use up all the staples. 

This incident makes me chuckle because our visitor had no way of knowing that we had six boxes of staples.  What family of four needs six boxes of staples?  Each box was enough to put a staple in 10 reams of paper.  How long would it take to use 5,000, let alone 30,000 staples?  I can't remember using those staples and throwing away empty boxes but we must have.  And yet we have the better part of one box left.  After more than 25 years!

Not one to miss a silly, little-known, independently celebrated holiday to which I can attach a family story, I filled both of our staplers today.  How about you?  You don't want to miss celebrating Fill Our Staplers Day, do you?

–Nancy.

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