School Days

Creeping like snail, unwillingly, to school.

                                                                                                                William Shakespeare, “As you Like It”, Act II, Scene VII

Riley, our Golden, is ready for back-to-school.  When the kids go back in our neighborhood this week, Riley will be delighted to see all his fans again. Here in Oakwood, kids walk to school — there are no school buses. This gives our community an “Andy of Mayberry” kind of feel — like how things were in years gone by when we were kids.

Being on a corner lot mid-way between the elementary school and the high school, we get a good portion of the student population passing by our fence.  Riley cutes them all up.  He loves the little kids who shout, “Hi Doggy!” and toss the ball for him.  And he sits nicely for the high school girls who give him pats and say, “Ooooooh! He’s so Cuuu-UTE!”  How’s a boy to resist that?  Riley loves back-to-school.

I’m sure there must be kids who love back-to-school also.  Ken, for example, was a kid who did. He says he used to love the first day of school.  He cites the standard themes: seeing all his friends again, great new school clothes, and crisp new school supplies.  But then, Ken is an optimist. He is one of life’s great enthusiasts. He had a great time at school – mostly in drama class (his words:  “A great way to meet girls!”)

Me? I’m one of life’s great grumblers. I wasn’t so crazy about it. For me, the last few days of August always felt like waiting to face the guillotine. The first semester felt like a life sentence without any possibility of parole.

For me, going back to school was an event of seismic scale – it rocked my world.  Contemplating the long months ahead of incarceration in a classroom gave me the blues.  Long months until summer’s freedom again.  Every year I turned in a dismal performance until January when I would finally give up my grumpiness at just being there and finally knuckle down to do some work. The teachers used to tell my mother that, “She seems to need a routine.”  I never thought so.  Not for me the tyranny of the alarm clock or the monotony of lessons and homework! What I needed was to be OUTTA THERE!

Oh, sure, like any kid, I liked looking at all my new school supplies – all clean and shiny.  But for me, “shopping for supplies” meant going to my Dad’s office supply store to pilfer from open stock, walking up and down the dark rows of the stock room, taking erasers and binders from open boxes marked “X” for “broken inventory”.   This was the ultimate in discount shopping, and there were no lineups at the cash-out, but it was hardly as much fun as going to the drug store to pick out the very prettiest Barbie binder— or later one with the Beatles on it! 

As for clothes shopping, this meant the annual Labour Day Weekend drive south from Winnipeg, “across The Line,” as my parents referred to the trip to Grand Forks, North Dakota, where my mother would buy me saddle oxfords and penny loafers and then attempt to obfuscate their presence at the border. “You kids, let us do all the talking!” Talk about tension!

So is it any wonder that this time of year gives me restless sleep?  And a faint feeling of doom?  Oh, and sure, I’ll admit to a sweet sense of renewal in September, as though the year starts now rather than in January.  Funny how that vague sense of apprehension mixed with excitement can linger into adulthood.  But now, pushing 60, I can safely remind myself that the dread is just a reflex and I can relax and instead go with remembering the excitement of the first day of school, with watching today’s moms and dads taking pictures of their kids, dressed up, on their way to meet their friends and new teachers, and with letting Riley out there to wait for pats.

Hmm. I seem to be getting a powerful urge to go buy a new pair of shoes!