Back to School

The signs are evident—whistle tooting crossing guards at intersections, the aisles at Target offering a picked-over jumble of notebooks and mechanical pencils, iconic yellow school buses cruising through neighborhoods like giant, yellow sharks. School’s in session and with that comes a flood of memories.

The Labor Day that I was five, I was told that I would be starting kindergarten. The word alone, kindergarten, was foreign and indicative of how strange and out-of-the-ordinary school would be. Everything, and I mean everything, about school seemed scary. And so, my student career began with me, after being dressed and combed, squeezing into the space between the refrigerator and the wall, my nose resting against the dusty coils of the old Frigidaire. No one would find me there. No one.

But Mom did, and an hour later she left me, literally, in the hands of Mrs. Mason, the kindergarten teacher. A sense of abandonment crept into my heart like frost crystals across a windowpane. I cried so long and so hard that Mrs. Mason, most likely out of desperation, set before me a bucket of primary colored blocks. She dropped a round block into the round hole of a wooden box sporting several different shaped cutouts…and then she left me to it.

The next day, I couldn’t wait to get back to school. Those kindergarten days flew by in a flurry of finger paint, cushy naptimes, and the colors of the rainbow. First grade held even more allure: counting stars and stripes on the flag, and new friends daring me to eat paste from the jar with a built-in brush. The years sped up with workbook tasks and chalk dust, the exploits of Tom, Betty, Susan and Flip the dog, and the monkey bars and merry-go-round of the playground. School was scary no longer. It was fun.

I can recall the names of most of my elementary school teachers and have stereotypical memories of their countenances: button earrings, cat-eye glasses, and at least one of them wore a hairnet. It’s 5^th grade, however, that I cannot for the life of me, remember my teacher’s name, but I remember her the most. Her soft voice mesmerized me when she read Little House on the Prairie and, as the year progressed, the more edgy Blackboard Jungle. She shared her homemade sourdough bread and concord jelly at snack time. Her wavy, blond hair could have been used as an advertisement for Herbal Essence shampoo, and she often wore a quilted, purple maxi skirt. I was in awe of her then for such day-to-day things, but now I see how she inspired me to view an empty page as an adventure just waiting to be created.

After 5^th grade, six-inch rulers gave way to protractors and compasses, crayons to number-two pencils and pens. The desire for a Betty and Veronica lunchbox was replaced by worrying about what to wear or if I could afford the chunky, synthetic yarn to adorn my ponytail like the sisters on The Brady Bunch did.

Today, as I watch a dark-haired girl in braids, probably a first grader, walk the crosswalk, her book bag bouncing on her back, a sheet of paper clutched in her hand, I smile. Whether she knows it or not, she is being given the stuff that will serve her for life. She is living the halcyon days of school, for which I am eternally grateful. I wish to thank those teachers: Mrs. Mason (kindergarten), Mrs. White (1^st grade), Mrs. Lemon (2^nd grade), Miss Williamson (3^rd grade), Mrs. Amstutz (4^th grade), and the 5^th grade beauty whose name I cannot remember for nurturing a shy little girl in hand-me-down dresses and instilling within her the four Rs: Reading, (w)Riting, (a)Rithmetic and a Reason for being.