The
First Day Of School
By
Pamela
Perry Blaine
©
October 2005
“How
was school, Ben?” I asked
my Grandson after he
began
kindergarten this year.
“The
work is too long…and there’s not enough time to play,”
he
replied with a deep sigh.
There
are some things that never change, I thought to myself as
I
remembered my own first day of school.
I vividly recalled sitting
with
my cousin, Suzanne, on her back steps at the end of the first day
of
school. We had been so
excited about going to school. We
sat there
with
our elbows on our knees and our chins propped up on our hands
as
we lamented, like Ben did, “the work is too long… and there’s
not
enough time to play.”
I
couldn’t help but remember Ben’s own mother, my daughter, and her
reaction
to the first day of school. Julie
was also disappointed with
the
first day of school and so was her little sister.
“I want to go “sool”
and
you not let me!” my
three-year-old daughter announced
resentfully
after her big sister boarded
the big yellow school bus.
When
Julie returned home that afternoon I asked her the same question
that
I had asked Ben, “How was school, Julie?”
Julie
also replied with a long, sad face but her answer was a little different
from
Ben’s as she announced, “I didn’t learn to read today.”
What
a disappointment for a little girl who thought she would magically
know
how to read her little books after the first day of school.
I had to
explain
to her that she would eventually learn to read but
it
didn’t happen quite that fast.
This
year as the school bus went by my house, my mind went back to
those
school days again. I could
almost smell the chalk dust in the air.
I
suppose few, if any, schools still use chalk and blackboards.
They have
probably
been replaced with newer equipment and large computer
screens.
One thing that I don’t missed is the irritating sound of the
chalk
as some ornery student caused it to screech across the board.
I
also wonder what new occupation the children these days manage to
get
elected to do in order to get out of school for a few moments since
there
are no erasers to clean. It
was fun to be “chosen” for eraser
cleaning
duty. This was a task
accomplished by going outside and
beating
erasers together while sneezing and coughing.
No wonder
so
many baby boomers now have allergies, it’s simply because
we
all have chalk dust in our lungs!
I
remember the excitement of the first day of school when my friends
and
I would go peek through the windows of the school house to try to see
what
improvements had been made to the classrooms.
It was during the
summer
months that the gym would be varnished and rooms that needed
it
would be repainted. We
probably added to the janitor's work with all the
little
finger and nose prints of curious children smeared all over the
windows.
On
the first day of school, the anticipation was so great that I would be
up
early in the morning and ready long before it was time to leave for
school.
We
walked about 6 blocks to school in new shoes that felt stiff and
restrictive
after
going barefoot so much during the summer months.
We
didn’t use back packs when I was in school but there wasn’t very much
to
carry. We had some notebook
paper, a pencil or two, crayons, a pair
of
scissors, and paste. The
paste smelled so good that it was sometimes
a
challenge for the teachers to keep some of the smaller
children
from eating the paste.
We
didn’t miss having back packs because who needs them when we
had
cigar boxes! We carried our
small supplies inside of a cigar box from
one
of the local stores. The stores in town must have saved cigar boxes all
year
just to give to us children because all we had to do was ask and the
store
owner would give us one. We saved them and used them from year
to
year until they fell apart. A notebook full of paper, the cigar box with
it’s
contents,
and we were off down the road headed for the schoolhouse.
The
first day of school was exciting. It
was a new beginning. The
doors
of
knowledge had been opened and we anticipated great learning
adventures.
The school had lots of books and no wonder that a
little
girl might be disappointed that she “didn’t learn to read today”.
The
first day of school is a milestone or a significant event in our lives
that
most of us remember. It’s
a big step for a small child toward
leaving
babyhood behind and so “there isn’t enough time to play”.
We
might simply remember that first day of school because of a new
tablet
of paper, a pair of new shoes, or our picture being taken
by
our parents to commemorate the day.
All
too soon small children grow up and get to go “to sool”, and although
there
might be disappointment on that first day because “I didn’t learn
to
read today”, they do eventually learn to read.
It
does seem that Ben is right about one thing though…no matter
how
old we get, nor how much we learn, it still seems
like
“The work is too long…and there’s not enough time to play.”
By
Pamela
Perry Blaine
©
October 2005
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