Today we have emerged from a post-apocalyptic world where the sun never shines. Gray sky has been replaced by blue and the sun has appeared. How long this will last I don’t know. The weather report is for showers later this afternoon and for every day until Sunday. Even now the sun is dimming, and the sky is clouding. It is warm though, and I’ll take that.
In my memory spring never had rain. It had sun every day. I’d walk to school wearing a light spring jacket, my school bag slung over my shoulder and across my chest. I remember a red plastic strap and two small pockets below the buckle which kept the large pocket closed. I’d carry my lunchbox or fit it in my school bag if I could. Spring meant we no longer walked hunched over protecting ourselves from the wind and the cold. We could take our time getting to school. I remember that every morning the school yard was filled with kids milling around waiting for the nun to come outside and ring the hand bell. We’d hear it and run to line up in twos by classes then we’d walk into the building one class at a time. Recess was always a joy in the spring.
We never counted days when I was young so we never knew when school would end for the year. The last days arrived unheralded. First was a week of testing to see if we’d learned anything then on that last day we’d get report cards and be dismissed in the late morning. I remember running home to tell my mother I’d been promoted.
Next year the old school turns 100. I’m hoping there will be festivities so I can walk through the door and up those stairs one more time. Maybe they ought to bring back a nun, still dressed in a habit, who will ring the bell to tell us it’s time. I know every inch of that building, and I even remember where I sat in some of those classrooms. I want to know if the cloakroom outside my first grade classroom is as I remember it. I want to go to the top floor and look down just as I did every day. I loved the view of wood and stairs and statues in niches. My memories are mostly fond. Years do that-clean up our memories and keep the good ones alive.
