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August 31, 2009

Ms.Takes: A few fond memories of back to school

Anonymous The Tribune Star Mon Aug 31, 2009, 09:35 PM EDT

Once upon a time, the first day of a new school year was the day after Labor Day.

Today school begins shortly after the start of football practice and certainly before the first game of the season — unless you count pre-season games.

I don’t know about kids today, but I could hardly wait for school to start. After a summer of swimming, riding my bike and sweating over my “project” for 4-H, I wanted to enjoy being promoted a grade in the 12-year sequence. This culminated in a senior year when everyone else was “just a kid” and we were the elite — about to move on to real life.

New clothes were not my thing. Mom made most of my clothes and her taste was better than mine. I did care about new shoes, but woe — my choice was black or brown Girl Scout oxfords. I wanted cool shoes, but alas.

What was really cool was the new stuff as you moved to a higher grade. I remember the first box of 16 crayons! And, always a new pencil box with good things to paw through. Not only were there pencils, but there was always a ruler, a compass (with which you could make floral designs to color with your new crayons!) and a mysterious something the teacher called a “protractor.” I think it had something to do with math or arithmetic. I don’t think anyone ever said, “take your protractor from your pencil box” so I’m not sure.

We also had to buy a tray of watercolor paints. How I hated those! My efforts were more water than color and it wasn’t until I moved to Indiana and saw Salty Seamon’s work that I appreciated the medium.

Pencil boxes don’t seem to be on school supply lists now. I do remember parents showing up at school board meetings to protest the early start of school because it was so hot the crayons were melting into a rainbow blob and they had to buy new ones.

But I remember then and this is now. Kids start earlier, but they also get out earlier in the spring. At one end of the year or the other, it’s going to be warm!



Liz Ciancone is a retired Tribune-Star reporter. Send e-mail to opinion@tribstar.com.

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Liz Ciancone

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  I told my Best Friend the other day that I thought I’d write about growing up stupid. “We weren’t stupid,” said he, “we were just sheltered and naive.” He’s right. We had no idea that there were people and things in the world that would want to hurt us.
   

  January 10, 2012  

• LIZ CIANCONE: She’s all for spacing out those holidays

  That swooshing sound you heard may not have been the wind. It was me! I was breathing a sigh of relief that the holidays are over until the next time.
   

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• MS. TAKES: Some look forward to spring and garage sales

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  December 27, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Let gifts to lawmakers help cut the deficit

  In the holiday spirit of giving, I’d like to pass along to Congress a tip I ran across in my reading. If adopted, it would enable the competing parties in Washington, D.C. to enhance federal income without raising taxes or reducing social programs.
   

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  It’s going to be a Merry Christmas for the Albert Pujols family this year!
   

  December 13, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: How much 'twinkle' do we need for holidays?

  I had an especially dear friend who went into a blue funk in Christmas season. She once threatened to spell out “Bah, Humbug!” in twinkle lights on her lawn.
   

  December 6, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Work's not a 'right', it's a necessity

  I understand the Indiana Legislature intends to work to produce a “right to work” bill this coming session.
   

  November 29, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Holidays bring on baking duties

  Somehow, in the vast scheme of things, I have ended up point person for holiday baking.
  I know how it happened. Mom was a great cook. I’d give almost anything if I had found her recipe for raisin sugar cookies or the chocolate-orange cake. She turned out coffee cakes, sweet rolls, bread, butterfly rolls and sweet surprises. We always had dessert.
   

  November 22, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Keeping track of a tattered underworld

  Mom always told me to be sure I never left the house with torn or dirty underwear. She usually added a warning about being hit by a truck or a bus, or some other catastrophe befalling, so that I’d be carted off to the hospital where my tattered underwear would become a matter of public record and private shame.
   

  November 15, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: So far, this is a poor excuse for debate

  I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen enough “debates” to last the rest of my natural life.
   

  November 8, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Sounds of silence are now hard to find

  Is there anyplace left where there is no noise — other than the comforting noises of nature?
   

  October 25, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Grueling trips, but we were together

  Family vacations were a given. Dad usually had a 10-day vacation every summer and the only question was where we would go for the best fishing.
   

  October 18, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Lure of the stage gets in your veins

  When I cast my memory back far enough, it seems as if I have always been stage struck.
  As a first-grader, I was picked to play a child in the senior class play at Stockton High School. Maybe it was my pigtails? I only knew that I was excused from class early on several afternoons a week so that I could rehearse with the big kids.
   

  October 11, 2011 1 Photo  

• MS. TAKES: They’re gone, but their music is not forgotten

  Dad believed that if it wasn’t composed by John Philip Sousa or Victor Herbert, it simply wasn’t music. Imagine his reaction to Woody Herman or — gasp — Stan Kenton!
   

  October 4, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Uncle Ed’s mule Maud was faithful work mate

  I like horses. Really! I do. I like them best seen from the windows of a car as they graze in a lovely spring pasture. I even like them on television as they do a parade lap before the start of a major race. But I draw the line at a second experience on the back of a horse.
   

  September 27, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Rules would be fine, if they made more sense

  I was pleased to read that the Department of Homeland Security plans to ease up on airport checkpoints. Not for the likes of you and me, but there will be no more “pat downs” of small children. Wee ones won’t even have to take off their shoes.
   

  September 20, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: 2 women’s strength of character unforgettable

  Remember the old “Readers’ Digest” feature: “The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met?”

  September 13, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Memories of 9/11: Hairpin vapor trails

  Those of us who have been around awhile remember a lot of stuff. Not only do critical moments in our lives loom large, we also remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when history was being made.
   

  September 6, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Today’s girls have more opportunity than ever

  I confess. I had a bit of a battle with the green-eyed monster the other morning. The newspaper had pictures of high school girls playing soccer with a team from another school, and with obvious joy and pleasure.
   

  August 30, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Lesson 1: School is not a drag

  Not long ago I ran across an old letter I had written to Dad when I was five years old. He had saved it!
   

  August 23, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Charter schools won’t solve all of education’s problems

  A friend asked me the other day what I thought of Tony Bennett.
   

  August 16, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Coming to grips with typing technology

  I was asked the other day if I still used a typewriter.
   

  August 9, 2011 1 Photo  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Missing the wishing inside the catalogs

  Only 24-hours after returning from vacation, our mail person delivered a two-week accumulation of mail. Our mailbox overflowed!
   

  August 2, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Achoo! Summer cold is something to sneeze at!

  Of all the miseries visited upon mankind, I think that the summer cold wins the door prize!
  My Best Friend and I opened our third box of tissues Sunday, a BIG box, not your handy, pocket-size job. We added tissues to the shopping list assuming that one or the other of us will soon feel like getting out. I know I’m ready to go someplace, ANYplace, as long as it’s out!
   

  July 26, 2011  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Haven’t we seen you somewhere before?

  I’ve heard it said that everyone has a doppleganger — a look-alike — and if that’s true, I suppose that somewhere in the world is a person who looks enough like me to be mistaken for me. Maybe it would take a dim light, or a vivid imagination, but for what it’s worth …

  July 20, 2011 1 Photo  

• LIZ CIANCONE: Homemade bacon? Why not just go to the store

  Mom read cookbooks the way other women read romance novels. No matter how similar the plot, recipes seemed to have enough variation to send her sprinting to the kitchen to assess her cupboards and add to her shopping list if necessary.
   

  July 12, 2011 1 Photo  

• More Liz Ciancone Headlines

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