“I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.”
Gracie battered her bells until I heard them, woke up and let her out, about 4:30. While I was waiting, I went out to the deck and watched the start of the morning. It had that hazy light between night and day. Fog hung over the street low to the ground. The air was damp, an after the rain damp. The first of the morning birds were already singing. I could hear Gracie walking in the underbrush of my backyard. No houses had lights. I was the only one lucky enough to be awake.
Today is cloudy and damp, the perfect day for all those errands. It’s warmer than I would have expected, but dampness this time of year doesn’t get close to the bones. The birds are noisier than usual.
June is among the great months. From the time I was little, I loved June. It meant the end of school. It meant freedom. Our last hurdles before summer were always exams, but they were no big deal. Our futures didn’t depend on them. We would be promoted regardless. I never knew anyone who wasn’t. Nobody was allowed to fail. The nuns saw to that.
The last day of school was always a half day. We had to clean the room, put books away, clear out our desks and get report cards. I remember running out the door carrying my book bag filled with crumpled papers, pencils and other bits and pieces from my desk. My report card was usually in hand all the way home. I could hardly wait to show it to my mother. “I’m promoted. I’m promoted!” was what I yelled as soon as I opened the door.
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June 2, 2010 at 12:53 pm
June is the start of summer here, even if the month of May also can be warm (not this year though). Our half day was the day before the last day. Since we had the same teacher and same class room for three years the last day was for getting our grades and to stand outside celebrating the comming summer. If it rained we always was in the gymnasium.
All classes had to sing a song, so all parents could hear it. After that was done we usually sang our most favourite psalm to end the school year.
It´s been sunny and warm here today. I twisted my ancle rather bad yesterday so I didn´t work today and most probably not tomorrow either.
Have a great day now!
Christer.
June 2, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Christer,
I was surprised when I saw you had posted today, it being Wednesday and all, then I read of your slipping in the paint. I’m not glad you were hurt but I’m glad it had nothing to do with your surgery.
Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer here. It’s the first big weekend when people arrive on Cape. The ocean is still too cold, but that didn’t stop all the people who showed up.
June 2, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Here in Texas it is already almost 100 degrees. The last day of school is Friday.
In the 1950s the schools here were not air conditioned and the last day was always the Friday before Memorial Day. They brought in huge electric fans to move air around the room.
Many of the teachers earned extra money by selling the World Book Encyclopedia. My father hated it, he thought it was too expensive and that the teachers used it in the classroom to further their sales. He bought us a cheap Encyclopedia that was sold in the grocery stores for a dollar a book. I was so embarrassed to get up in front of the class to give a report that I researched from that set of grocery store books.
June 2, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Bob,
It is just too early for all that heat. The sun has disappeared, and I just closed the windows. The breeze I loved early is not a bit chilly. I’ll take that anytime.
We always went until June, usually around the 10th or so before freedom.
We also had a set from the grocery store. Mine had a red binding. My mother dutifully added a volume a week until we had the whole set.
June 2, 2010 at 7:54 pm
Funk and Wagnalls? We had it too!
June 2, 2010 at 10:32 pm
Erin,
I don’t remember if that is what we had. If yours also had a red, almost maroon cover, that’s what ours was. I don’t remember any more
June 3, 2010 at 1:22 am
Ours were green – Kroger’s, I think.
They seemed to work well enough for our family. They, and the one volume “Book of Knowledge” we had previously. That was printed in 1916 and held a surprising amount of information. Of course, since neither held an imprimatur, they were held in distain by the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa.
We were quite lucky, though. We lived a block and a half from a branch library. What a godsend! It seems now that all the old neighborhood branches are gone and the new ones are all in shopping centers. Quite plush, and catering to the Borders Without Bucks set. Our latest even has a coffee bar. But few kids. I just don’t see as many kids in the libraries as I once did. Parents working? The internet? Just not into libraries any more? I’m not sure why, but it’s really a shame. We almost lived at the library during summers when we were young.
June 3, 2010 at 9:40 am
John,
I’m on our local library board, and the numbers are up according to the librarian. It seems more and more people are availing themselves of the book and movie collection. It has a lot to do with the economy.
We are a town blessed with libraries in each of the five villages.
June 2, 2010 at 1:46 pm
I was awake with you at 0 dark thirty this morning. It looked like it was going to be a grey day but the clouds have gone and the sun is shining. There’s a cool breeze and that’s how I like it. A perfect day.
I don’t remember last days of school. There was the first day of first grade and then there was high school graduation. In between is a blurry ghost of memory with odd points of clarity here and there. None of it seems to be attached to particular days and dates. No matter which school I was in, a June day in a classroom always smelled the same. Warm wood, wax and dust.
June 2, 2010 at 4:39 pm
caryn,
It was the same way here. The sun, though, has now gone, and the day is quite cool. I had mentioned to someone about the lovely day, but I can’t say that now.
I remember walking home with card in hand, but not every year. For some reason the 4th and 6th grades stand out more than most.
June 2, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Heh, heh. @Bob: I just threw away one of the two volumes my folks bought of likely that same series. Mine was gotten through the then fairly new Safeway store in San Angelo, out in west Texas. They never even completed the cheap series. I talked my mother into taking me downtown to the county library to do my research. I loved the smell of the books and the freedom to roam about and have ALL THAT KNOWLEDGE at my fingertips. Still quite fun to go to the U.T. library in Austin, where there are 8 million volumes available.
Having a stack permit the last year in college at U.T. (when the main library took up about 25 floors of the famous tower) was absolutely the best experience in the book dimension!
That was so much better than an encyclopedia.
June 2, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Rick,
I used to lie on the floor with a volume in hand and open up to a random page and read. It was a fun way to spend some time.
In elementary school, that encyclopedia was enough but for high school I always went to the library up town, about a 15 or 20 minute walk. It was always filled at night with high school kids. It was the only place we could go on a school night.
June 2, 2010 at 6:52 pm
That Tom Dooley was/is a great song. I never used the word “promoted” when going from one grade to the other. I think I stood tall along the greens wiping my forehead and saying “I made it”. Promoted was never anywhere near my vocabulary. Check with word press please. Every time I hit the comment link an ad comes up and it stays in my tab bar. This one today is some school selling onlne courses. Teacher Kat? Are they trying to tell me something?
June 2, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Z&Me,
I couldn’t find any information as to why the ads are popping up in the tab bar. Nope, they are most assuredly not implying a single thing despite your relief at having made it as you wiped the sweat from your brow!
June 3, 2010 at 3:01 pm
We always used the word “passed”.
Now, of course, when we used that word it has a much different connotation.
June 3, 2010 at 9:29 pm
John,
We always said we were promoted because we’d passed, in the old sense of course.