My daughter had to lug a backpack around through middle school, and I know what you mean about awkward. Rush may be wrongly belittling the problem, but when my Dad was a kid they had to do one hell of a lot more physical work on a farm in one day than a kid with even a 40 pound backpack ever sees in a week, so maybe there is just a little bit of video game mushiness in the picture somewhere. Rush was totally right however about the stupid idea of legislating "lighter books."

I don't know what the problem is with lockers. My daughter's high school has lockers, and if there were going to be drug and weapon problems, why middle school and not high school?