What's in YOUR lunchbox?

     We've all been there.  You open up the lunch box and stare at something that turns your grumbling stomach.  Faced with starving to death before 3:00 when you get home, you weigh your options.  Choke it down, or trade with a classmate.  Trade it is.  Now you must capitalize on your persuasive speech, fine tune your salesman technique, and seek out the most willing "victim".  The barter and trading begin.  With skills and signals like a New York stock exchanger, you emerge victorious with the package of Oreos, while the trader goes away with the revolting stomach turner.  Your trash, his treasure.  Desperate times, desperate measures. 
     Our trade fair wasn't quite as "vital" as our previous trades in life have been, but it was a lot more fun.  I came home with a Coach purse, an item I was pretty sure I would NEVER have in my entire life and that probably cost more than anything else in my closet.  It cost me a Longaberger pie plate.  A fair trade?  That's all in the eyes of the beholder.  How much did Ashley value the pie plate?  How much did she value the purse?  What will each of these be worth in the future?
     The trade fair was a fun way to recreate an event that was a way of life for our ancestors.  What was I going to do when I saw that purse and wanted it, but all I had was a pie plate?  How could I make it more appealing to get what I wanted?  What would I have done hundreds of years ago if that was medicine for one of my kids and didn't have what the owner wanted as a trade?  These are questions that came up, and became real, when participating in the fair.  You could relate, even if on a small level, to what it was like.  To me, that is the key to making history a fun subject: relating it to life now, caputring the wonder of words in a book coming to life years ago, and realizing that what we are living is history to our grandchildren.