School starts back earlier than it used to. I remember the years when I was in grammar school, the last few weeks of summer were frantic. I spent as much time outside as possible drinking in the last warm days of summer before those school bells began to ring.
My mom would get the fall Sears and Roebuck and J. C. Penny catalogs down and start shopping for school clothes. The weekend before classes started, she'd go downtown Dora and pick up fat pencils, theme paper, a new binder and if I was lucky, I'd get a new lunch kit. I can remember the smell of paste and the scent given off by a freshly sharpened pencil.
The first few days of school were exciting because we always had some new people and maybe a new teacher or two. It was also fun to find out the color Mr. Evan's new Rambler automobile. It seems like he bought one every year.
He was a stern man that took principal-ing seriously. He ran a tight ship. We always met in the auditorium each morning and we could talk and kid around until he took the stage and at that point, you could hear a pin drop. He'd announce what we'd be having in the lunchroom, and any kind of activities planned for the week. When he was finished, he would ask one of the students to play the piano while everyone filed out of the auditorium quietly and headed off to class.
I can tell you that the last thing you wanted to do was to see Mr. Evans anytime else during the day because that usually meant that you'd misbehaved and going down to get an attitude adjustment. I never got one of those from him.
We rode the bus in the mornings, but our bus was the last one in the evenings so rather than sit around waiting, we usually headed home on foot. It was fun walking with all my friends. Pestering the girls and putting charlie horses on the arms of the guys. You haven't lived until you've had a charlie horse on your arm.
I know the school system has reasons for starting back to school in August, but it doesn't seem right to go back to class with so much summer left. If I were a kid, I think I'd feel cheated.
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