Back To School

The Back To School Sales are practically done.

The new school shoes already are scuffed.

Some of the new No. 2 pencils are already pretty short.

And it's still two weeks until Labor Day Weekend.

Sure it's been more than 40 years since my graduation from high school but my memory is still pretty good. Just ask my wife, ‘ol whatshername. (Just a joke, honey).

Anyhow pholks, my point is that this whole school year and summer vacation thing is so screwed up it probably never will be fixed.

Summer vacation was supposed to begin about a week or so after Memorial Day, somewhere in the first week of June--give a day or two. For me, graduation from elementary school, high school and even college fell on my birthday--June 8.

These days the most schools end their normal school year somewhere between May 28 and the first or second week in June.

It then was summer, time to swim, go on vacation if you didn't luck out and get a summer job..a factor which became more important after your sophomore year in high school. Jobs meant money and money meant more potential fun and so on. If you had a good job, you probably had a good summer. Maybe saved some money for school and still were able to enjoy those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. Maybe a summer romance. Maybe scoring some "firsts" and almost certainly having some of the best times of your life.

I always divided summer into three parts: School is out, Fourth of July, Labor Day Weekend.

Of course, each of those three parts changed each summer of my youth I still looked forward to each for various reasons.

Getting ready for the return to school--the week after Labor Day--was also a way to measure one's growth. In elementary school going back to school meant new shoes, two or three new pair of jeans, socks, and a couple of shirts. If your parents could do it, you probably got your new coat even before the cool weather arrived. If not, you waited and kept your fingers crossed. A new coat didn't always really mean "new."

New school clothes were important but not as much as having a new lunch pail. Superman, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Flash Gordon and Godzilla were among the top pails. And a good thermos could make a guy King of the Hill on the playground.

Then came high school. No lunch pail. A couple of wimps had them but never did I see "one of the guys" carry a pail. A paper sack was pretty cool for a freshman or a sophomore. Having a car as a junior or senior made paper sack lunches and standing in line at the cafeteria not so cool.

Of course one of the big events of going back to high school was getting a new locker and your combination number. Many of you pholks probably remember lockers. Lockers were great things. Very seldom were lockers a problem in my school days. A few kids probably stashed their cigarettes there and some of the real tough guys might have had a hunting knife or maybe a real cool switchblade. Heck, there may have been a pack or two of firecrackers among the several hundred lockers and a couple of ‘dirty" calendars stashed in some math or science books. And I'd bet a few beers and maybe a pint, quart or fifth of booze were seized from lockers.

But lockers are things of the past. Few, if any schools, have them. Everyone has a backpack. Let me tell you pholks, I can't see any of my classmates ever hauling around a backpack. Talk about uncool. Not even any self-respecting nerd would have been caught wearing a backpack. I was not a nerd, nor was I dummy or a straight A student, but I was one of the guys...one of the guys who carried just as many books as necessary. No more, no less. Books belonged in lockers, in your car or under your arm. If you were lucky enough you carried the books of some cute young thing. You didn't haul her backpack.

I think a backpack would have been just as bad in high school as a Roy Rogers lunch pail.

Of course none of those concerns would have meant a thing until after Labor Day.

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