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Starting School
'Starting School'
When I began the first grade mom would take me to Brooks Clothiers downtown to buy my
t-shirts, underwear and my red label Farrah 'husky' jeans. Then off
to TG and Y next door to get pencils, my Big Chief tablet, and
crayolas. Oh and then around the corner to H and K Shoe store for a
brand new pair of US Keds tennis shoes.
No. 2 pencils, US Keds and a Big Chief tablet and I was ready for anything my teachers could
throw at me. Bring it on! This school boy was ready! (Except I was
really scared and would rather have stayed at home.)
I could run down the basketball court, print my name and color within the lines pretty
well. (Even though I didn't know all my colors until the second half
of the first grade. I'd been too busy playin' with my dog and fishin'
to spend a lot of time on that stuff.) I could also go down the 'big
slide' real fast, play on the jungle gym and say the pledge of
allegiance like a trooper.
As my late life guru Gary Smalley says, 'life's a school, we're all in class.' Yes and a double
'amen' to that. Just because you may no longer inhabit a traditional
classroom doesn't excuse you from being in class anyway. It's all
school from first breath to last.
'If you don't know, why don't you ask?' as Brother Smalley says. Nobody knows it all. Or ever will.
That's why when kids go through the excitement, frustration, joy and anxiety of beginning
their school year it rekindles some of those feelings for me.
Butterflies.
Will I remember what I learned last year? Who's going to be my teacher? Will they like me?
Will I like them? What will I learn? Am I too ignorant to learn
something new? Will I wet my pants before I find my way to the
bathroom at the new school?
Do my parents know my teachers? Do my teachers know my parents?
Will I have to sit next to someone I don't like? Will I have to eat spinach?
What's the playground like? Will there be girls?
Will there be a big slide?
These are questions I still ask myself every morning.
Life's a school we're all in class.
Every single one of us.
Let's all sit up straight, pay attention and try to learn something and be helpful.
Okay?
Okay!
Views: 15
Comment
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Comment by Ericka Gray on August 17, 2010 at 5:15pm
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This post actually brings back olfactory memories to me. I remember the smell of the hardware stores with it's creaky wooden floors and I remember the candy /gum smell mixed in with newspaper at the drug store where I would get to pick out a cigar box to my pencils and glue in. It also brings back memories of my mother taking all four kids to the shoe store for two pairs of shoes each. We all would get a pair of sneakers and a pair of school shoes. One of the stores we went to ,Tom McCanns I'm thinking, had a slide that you could take to children's section.
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Comment by Maggie Friend on August 16, 2010 at 5:46pm
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For me, the beginning of school has always been a time of excitement and anxiety. Those fresh young faces every fall, the smell of paper and pencils, the slightest hint of fall approaching brings it all back every time. Yet, as your teacher says, we are always in school. So perhaps each fall, like bells of mindfulness, these sights and smells come back to us and remind us that we have been here all along and there is still so much to learn.
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Comment by wiffledust on August 16, 2010 at 4:42pm
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ever since i read this, rick, i have been remembering tommy. tommy's hardware store was halfway between school and my house. and he sold everything from alarm clocks to shelf paper to can openers. at school start time, he lined up one whole side of his store with school supplies, and we all would go in finding which spirals we wanted with who on the cover. the place had wood floors and ceiling fans, and tommy always asked us who our teachers were. things are not the same.
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Comment by Faith Phillips on August 16, 2010 at 2:09pm
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I remember that feeling distinctly. Nothing in the world quite like it. I really enjoyed this, Rick.
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