Back to school

Who can think of this time of year without recalling bittersweet memories of September pending, and a new school year looming abead after the blissful abandonment of summer? I remember counting off the days starting at about the two-week mark prior to the first day of school. As the days ticked off, the apprehension grew. I didn’t ever want school to start like most kids, but I was also ready in a way because time was beginning to drag, it was getting old being home so much, and I was tired of mowing lawns.

New clothes would have been purchased — maybe a pair of gray slacks, a couple of oxford button down shirts and penny loafers, but I really can’t recall what kinds of shoes I wore, however. No T-shirts, shorts, sandals, athletic shoes, etc., etc. that you see today. Dress codes were more strict. I’d always hold off on supplies until I found out what kind of notebooks (spiral-bound, looseleaf, 3-ring binder…etc.), the various teachers wanted. Go to the Sunday paper advertising supplements if you saved any from this past weekend and look at the back-to-school sales. Times have changed with all the new technology, but some things remain the same, too. We’d go to the Morgan and Lindsey or TG&Y dime stores for supplies. Today, kids go to the Eckerd’s or CVS Pharmacy, or Wal-Mart or Office Depot. The front of the Office Max ad had 200 sheets of filler paper (5 for $1), double pocket folders, Elmer’s glue, Master combination padlocks, and software for video e-mail and Web albums. Office Depot had a complete computer package for $899, not to mention 50 calculators to choose from. Some of my computer-oriented friends back then were getting new slide rules and dreaming of computer programming with punch cards.

It was overall a kind of nervous time, trying to sqeeze every last drop out of the hot, joyous carefree days of August, but as September approached, the unmistakeable dread of the unfamiliar began to creep in, by degrees. What would my homeroom be like? Who would I have for English? Would there be some new kids to me to perhaps befriend? How much would I be able to get out of doing in gym class again that year? And on and on.

Yet, it was kind of exciting because of the unknowns that lay ahead. Each September was like starting all over again. Like getting a new job every year. Everything was new insofar as external routines, although most of us still lived in the same houses neighborhoods we had lived in for years. The old days of the previous school year had long since vanished into mere memories of those final report cards and the freedom-ringing 3:15 bell on the last day of school in May or early June. By late August it was all starting up again.

I had a five-block walk to the bus stop for the three-mile ride to my high school. I walked to elementary and junior high. I remember standing at the corner in that suburban neighborhood waiting for Bus 84 to come. Each year it was the same one, and for two years we had the same driver. He was a young man around 30, stocky, swarthy, never said a word. Never smiled. Just opened that door and let us file in to our seats. I always got one about three- quarters of the way to the back, usually on the right, as I recall. In fact, many years later when I took a commuter bus to work in downtown Seattle, I chose the exact same seat in the bus. Imprinted on me, I guess. The poor guy who had to drive our bus never quite got the hang of shifting the monstrous gears in those clunky old yellow school buses, and I can see him to this day, slamming the door shut and grinding away from first to second gear. We all sort of winced, but after a few weeks, we got used to his drving again.

On that first ride to school on that first day, the tension was pretty palpable, within me at least. I knew I wouldn’t rest until I had successfully maneuvered through getting my locker and combination lock, looking intensely at my schedule and which period I had lunch; going through orientation with all five of my teachers (six including P.E.), and then waiting for the bell at the end of the day so I could GET OUT OF THERE.

Summer was still waiting for me when I got home, but it was departing fast. A new school year had begun.