Back to School

I was reading JellyBelly's post about getting her classroom ready for the new school year and was overcome by a sense of nostalgia. I used to both dread and love this time of the year.

When I was kid (feels like eons ago now) each school year would end and we'd have to go back 2 weeks later to pick up our report cards. This was always a time filled with dread and anticipation. In the the folder with our report cards would be family passes (or maybe just kid passes) for the CNE - Canadian National Exhibition, a huge carnival with roller coasters and games to play. The CNE opens every year for the last two weeks of the summer so when you got to use your tickets that would mean school was just around the corner. Every year I would beg my parents to take me. Some years I would win, some years not so much. I remember going and just having to have that felt top hat with my name emblazoned in glittery silver paint across the front, going to the food building and getting Tiny Tom donuts piping hot and smothered in powdered sugar, begging my parents for a clip for my little purse - you know the clip with the long piece of leather and feather on the end. I'd find out much later that it was a roach clip - oops! No wonder my parents would laugh so much when I begged for one and ask "what are YOU going to do with it?" I remember the slimy DJ voice on the Polar Express ( a ride that basically had a bunch of two seater cars that went around in a circle and the person on the outside would get squished) when he'd yell out "Do you want to go faster? Let me hear you scream!" And, we'd all scream in answer. Then as my legs got tired and the night drew in all of the lights on the rides and at the games would come on and there'd be the smell of hot dogs and popcorn and cotton candy in the air. I can close my eyes and remember it so vividly. Then just as quickly as it started it would be over and I'd know that soon I would be back at school.

As a kid I would dread losing the freedom of the summer, not that I really got that at the time. But, I would soon be caught up in the "back to school" frenzy. New outfits and new shoes and new school supplies. I LOVED getting new school supplies. Funky pens, and brightly coloured binders, new plaid pencil cases and liquid paper that came in a pen. It was a heady time.

Sigh. I miss having such a structured life and being able to be excited about marking changes in time. The closest I get now is when the time changes to/from daylight savings every year. Yet another reason that I think it will be amazing to have kids - to watch them delight in the sounds and smells and colours of their youth and watch them mark the passage of time.