School

What a nice weekend. The days seemed nice and long. We got a lot accomplished. The house smelled wonderful Saturday morning as apples cooked on the stove for applesauce. It smelled and looked like fall. We have beautiful fall foliage for the first time in several years, and we're really enjoying looking at it.

Sunday was a lot less busy than Saturday, but it seemed like a really long morning – I woke up wide awake pretty early.......bless the politicians and Daylight Saving Time!! I put a pork roast in the oven for lunch and we had a quiet relaxing morning before afternoon football.

This is going to be a busier than normal week, so I'm glad my sleep pattern was better last night. My body just doesn't adjust easily to changing my bedtime!

We had “Little House On The Prairie” on for a few minutes – an early episode showing Mary and Laura's first day of school in town, complete with their first meeting with Nellie Olson. Hubby asked me if my early farm days were like that.

I was usually excited for the first day of school. Getting ready for school would start in the latter half of summer. Shopping would be done for school clothes, or fabric and patterns for school clothes. It was always fun buying new pencils, tablets, crayons, glue......and a book satchel. Sometimes there would be a “frivolous” buy of a pencil box that came with a protractor, small ruler, pencil sharpener. Mom would make sure I got one that was educational as well as functional......an educational pencil box was how I learned the U.S. Presidents, in chronological order.

One of the hardest parts of going back to school for me was buying new shoes. I was either barefoot or wearing the prior year's canvas tennis shoes (likely with holes in the toes) during the summer. I did put “real” shoes on when we went shopping or to Sunday School. My toes were never happy at being squeezed back into shoes on a daily basis when I went back to school.

It was always fun to see everyone after a summer apart. Who was tallest in the class this year? How had hair styles changed? What other unexpected changes might there be? And always the biggest question, are there any new kids in school? I think I may have been the first one in my class to get glasses, between 7^th and 8^th grades. Braces weren't an issue then – we had one person in high school who had braces, the year behind me.

We didn't often have new teachers. My class got a new music teacher when I was in second grade. The next new teacher for my class was another new music teacher in 8^th grade. That one lasted two years, then we had a new music teacher every year. A new math teacher for 9^th grade was there only one year, then a former graduate came back to teach until after I graduated. We got a new P.E. teacher came my freshman year. There was also a new english and home ec teacher our senior year.

That kind of longevity is very special. I still enjoy running into my former teachers and chatting with them. After that many years together, I'm running into long-time friends when I see them. And that would be one of the advantages to living in a small community. It's like having a very extended family, all the friends and neighbors you've grown up with and who care about you. When they see your parents and ask them how you are, they truly want to know.