Just as I went to get the newspapers it started to rain, not mist but heavy drops of rain. I went anyway. I got wet and I got chilly. The rain has since stopped though it is still a bit dark, but every now and then I can see the sun fighting its way through the clouds. I think it will be a sunny afternoon.

We never had to do much back to school shopping. We wore uniforms so new clothes weren’t necessary. We got new shoes, new socks and new underwear. We had to go to the shoe store and have our feet measured before my mother could buy the shoes. They were always sturdy shoes which had to last as long as possible. I’d show my mother what I wanted, and she’d shake her head and show me what she wanted. We seldom agreed. I always lost. The socks were white or blue to match the uniform. The underwear was always cotton and always the same brand, Lollipop, a strange name for underwear. The underwear was never stylish, but it wouldn’t have embarrassed my mother had I been in an accident.

The best school shopping was for supplies. We’d buy a school bag usually one of those square ones with buckles and a couple of pockets, a notebook and some lined paper. My favorite new supplies were the pencil box and the lunch box. Those took time to choose. It couldn’t be just any lunch box. I wanted a character lunch box, maybe somebody I watched on TV like Annie Oakley or Rin Tin Tin. My mother never objected to whichever one I wanted. The pencil boxes had illustrations on the front usually of kids walking to school or sitting at their desks. The insides of the boxes were mostly identical: pencils, a 6 inch ruler, a small pencil sharpener, colored pencils, maybe an eraser and always a protractor, a complete mystery to me. I had no idea what it was and why it was. I had a ruler so I didn’t need it to draw straight lines. We never used it in school for anything. Once in a while in art I’d make a circle using it, but that was it. It mostly just took up space.

I used to look at my supplies and open and close the pencil box a few times. I’d put the supplies in my school bag, put the bag cross my shoulder and pretend I was going to school. It was a dress rehearsal of sorts. I was never sorry to go back to school.