Back to School: Then, Now, Always

       

September and “back to school” days, can be a wistful time.

For teachers, back to school used to mean endless handouts, creating lesson plans, ordering audio-visual materials, checking that the maps don’t spin backward and pounding the erasers.

Today, teachers have a web site, post assignments, email students, show  current news clips via computer.  No chalk necessary.

For earlier generations, back to grade school meant a new pencil box with pens, erasers, a ruler and a protractor. Today’s kids carry a backpack and a laptop.    While the older generation is happy to describe walking three miles to get to school, today’s youth doesn’t walk anywhere. 

Back to high school centered around the thrill of clothes, picking out just the right sweater and wearing it on the first day even if there was sweltering September heat.  It meant fresh notebooks and one’s own locker.  And always it was about cars. In the 1950s the kids would pile into lowered Chevys and Fords with pipes if they could finagle it, squeeze eight teenagers where only four should be.   Today, it’s Toyotas and Hondas while still piling in.

Not much has changed. Boys and girls still want to see who is going to share homeroom, figure out the good from the evil teachers and throw away the lunch pail.

College back to school used to mean long lines in the college gym to register for a class, hoping it wouldn’t close.  If it did, one had to join a new line and begin again. Now it is simply a click of the mouse.

The anticipation of going “back to school” is exhilarating, where memories are made that shape one’s whole life:  first loves that are never forgotten and best friends bonded forever. Some  stay stuck in those “good old days”.   Others stay close.  Most revisit. 

With each school year, the refuge of youth is slowly peeled away and the independence so longed for ends up coming way too soon.   So, if you are a kid, enjoy September with its restart of engines and paths yet to be carved.  The fun of youth is in your pocket.  Don’t waste a nickel of it.  All too soon, September will be a wistful time for you.

email: wvcpat@comcast.net

A Summer Night

There is something so young and sweet about a warm summer night. The aromatic stew of jasmine, roses, and petunias, the thick fragrance of fresh mown grass and the dank smell of sprinkler water whirring up and down the street.

A warm summer night conjures up a memory of Mom’s admonition: “only five more minutes” as my brother and I ran through the yard hoses. He would squirt me in the eye by putting his toe into the sprinkler head and then run like the devil before I could get him back.

A warm summer night reminds me of baseball games, barbecues, swim parties, walks on the beach, crickets and tree frogs, a special kind of quiet and always a hint of romance in the air. I remember watching my parents dance on a bandstand at dad’s company picnic and thinking how silly they looked but harboring a secret envy.

I went to my first eighth grade party on a warm summer night and walked home with a boy for the very first time. I can remember the sky and the breeze and my first kiss was on that sweet, romantic summer night.

My little boy played kickball and soccer and basketball on warm summer nights. He played until it got so dark he couldn’t see the ball and I would demand that he come in. The screen door would slam and in he would come, complaining that the game hadn’t ended and if only…” Then we sat in the living room with all the doors open, cats and dogs panting in the hallway, waiting for the temperature to break.

Children got to stretch the bedtime rules on warm summer nights. Whole families congregated on their front lawns waiting for the cool air to signal bedtime. My brother and I would pass them as we walked home from a late afternoon movie and we’d listen to the low murmur of neighborhood chit-chat that flowed from their yards.

Whether reminiscing about a Michigan summer storm or a California beach fire, a warm, summer night conjures up nostalgia. For me, it is a walk to the barn with my Uncle Jim. I’d never experienced country living until, at age sixteen, I spent my summer on his farm in Ohio. I picked berries in the woods, played croquet on the enormous back lawn, and, each evening, in that soft, summer Ohio air, I accompanied my uncle to the barn to water and feed the horses. Then we’d join the family on the screened-in porch, and listen to the flying insects that tried to get through, while we’d play games until forced to go to bed.

Has the porch been replaced by the mall? Has the company picnic been substituted by a bigger bonus? Has a rave taken the place of a teenage backyard party? Have we lost the ability to enjoy simple moments? Do computers, T.V. and Nintendo prevent us from ever hearing the whir of sprinklers or a cricket’s tune? Do we get home so late from work that we have no time for a neighborhood chat?

Has our society become too predatory for a kid to play out in the street until it gets dark or for a young girl to walk home in the early twilight with that special boy?

 Or are there some ingenuous moments that, regardless of age or region or circumstance, endure. Just this week, my fourteen year old grand daughter, with whom I share Email messages, responded rather circumspectly to a question I asked about what she had done the evening prior. She and her best friend had been “hanging out” with two of the neighbor boys on the front porch, her Email said. It was obvious she had her first crush, as did he. She was on a cloud. She got to stay out until almost dark, but with her mother always circling the premises. “ He is on the baseball team and he’s just one of the cutest boys in school, that’s all,” she wrote. And they all watched the stars together. I could feel the anticipation and the flush that she experienced. I was on that walk home all over again.

Summer is closing shortly. Autumn is already in the air. Football has begun, binders have been purchased, school clothes have been fought over and darkness comes sooner. Despite our 21st century lives, despite our 24/7 mentality, despite all that we think we need, a warm summer night reminds me of what we have to hold on to.