Back to school reflections

School starts soon. My son Doug and I were talking about how different things are now than when we attended school. In my day — in the dark ages — we started our summer vacation in mid-June and didn’t go back until after Labor Day. It’s so different now.

My friends and I were almost as excited going back to school as we were when looking forward to summer vacation. My mother always bought us new shoes and at least one new outfit. The items we needed like pencils and notebooks were way at the end of the list. Our list of “school” items was a lot different than it is today.

It was in about the fifth grade that we were all excited, that at last, we’d get to have our inkwells filled and be able to decide which of our pen points we’d use to finally be grown up enough to use pens instead of lead pencils. Can you just imagine kids today getting excited about something like that, a pen you dipped into ink?

In all the years I attended school, I never rode a school bus. I walked as everybody else did. In grammar school we didn’t have a lunchroom, we ate at our desk and we came daily with packed lunches. The school provided milk, but that was it. We were all excited when we finally hit junior high and could buy lunch for a dime. Ice cream was a dime.

If you wanted either chocolate sauce or whipped cream it cost an extra penny. I especially loved the hot dog and baked bean lunch. In junior high girls had to take cooking and sewing classes and the boys metal and wood shop. It may seem ridiculous now, but having a marketable craft skill wasn’t such a bad idea, not with the economy going into decline as it still does from time to time.

Sewing and cooking classes were my favorites. I hated gym class with a passion. To begin with, we had horrible looking gym outfits. They had baggy pants that made even those with thin “butts” look enormous. Then there were those terrible high-top gym shoes. I was given a size that was at least 2 inches too big. My feet flopped around in them. I couldn’t do a darned thing right.

We never had, nor did my kids, backpacks. There just were no such things then. Everybody carried what he or she needed from class to class. This might explain why some of my generation, and my son’s for that matter, have back problems. Then there’s that “computer” thing. We didn’t even have calculators! You needed to figure out how much this and that added were, or how to multiply or divide. You used your brain.

Now we come to the days when Doug attended school. Things were somewhat different than in my day. I remember the dress code that the boys couldn’t wear jeans or polo shirts. I ironed 45 to 50 shirts every third week. Hair could not be over the ears or shirt collar. As with my generation, girls’ skirts had to be at least 2 inches below the knees, much different than what today’s students wear.

Doug took the school bus to junior and high school. The school district was so poor after building a new junior high, it contracted with the Philadelphia Transit Authority to transport students on worn out old green buses. There was one small hill on the way. The boys had to leave the bus at its bottom and walk up, then re-board at the top, even in the rain and snow.

It took an accident when one of these buses lost its brakes and crashed into another bus at the junior high before anything changed. Pennsylvania State Troopers showed up, citing the bus contractor and the school district for safety violations. Parents were made to get their children. Somehow the district found the money to get a real company that provided safe buses. Today, we’re fortunate that our school district does such a better job.

Doug’s favorite junior high memory is how he and his best friend Rick changed temporary signs above all the schoolroom doors the first day, creating mass pandemonium. They got caught. Given an option of three days suspension, or whacks with an oak paddle. Knowing they’d probably get whacked at home anyway, they both decided on the paddles. Can you imagine that discipline happening today?

Edna Van Leuven is a Churchill County writer and columnist. She may be reached at news@lahontanvalleynews.com