Posted tagged ‘school shopping’

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“The uniform makes for brotherhood, since when universally adopted it covers up all differences of class and country.”

August 29, 2017

Yesterday was a lazy day. I watered the newly planted flowers and took a shower. That’s it for the day except for the two naps I had. My mother would have said I must have needed the sleep. Today, however, will be different. It is the dreaded laundry day. It’s not the doing but the carrying I hate, the lugging of all that laundry up two flights of stairs. I do it in shifts: one flight, a pause then the other flight. Sometimes the pause lasts a day. The laundry sits on the rocking chair glaring at me.

The day is cloudy and a bit dark. I felt chilly so I shut the windows. It is only 67˚ and won’t get much higher. What happened to the dog days of August?

I remember late summer and school shopping with my mother. The first stop was always the shoe store. My mother had to drag the four of us though only my brother and I needed new shoes. My sisters were still young and didn’t go to school yet. At the store, they’d measure our feet with that silver slide and then have us put each foot, one at a time, into the x-ray machine. I always thought it was so neat seeing the x-ray of the bones in my feet. My mother bought sturdy shoes for us hoping they’d last a while. The next stop was for new uniform clothes. I needed white blouses, a blue wool skirt and a blue cowboy looking tie. My brother needed white shirts and a blue tie. The Children’s Corner, a clothing store up town, carried the uniforms. Uptown was sort of close so we’d walk. My mother bought me a few blouses but only a single skirt. She’d also buy a couple of long-sleeve shirts for my brother. From there we’d head to my favorite stop, Woolworth’s, for school supplies. I got to pick out my pencil case, lunch box and school bag. We’d buy crayons, always Crayola, glue and pads of paper, the ones with the Indian chief on the front. I was so excited with all the purchases and was thrilled to carry the bag home.

When I was working at the high school, I used to call my mother this time of year and asked her when she was taking me school shopping. My mother would laugh, and that was her only response. I hoped for more, shoes at least.

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“Smartness runs in my family. When I went to school I was so smart my teacher was in my class for five years. “

August 22, 2014

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.

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“Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.”

August 23, 2011

The air is crystal clear and the sun sharp. Today is as lovely as yesterday though maybe a bit cooler. The back of my house, the last place the sun hits each day, is usually my refuge from the heat. This morning it’s chilly. Gracie just came inside for her morning nap. I’m surprised she didn’t sleep on the deck lounge. Earlier, the breeze was blowing the chimes hanging from trees in the backyard. I heard the sweetness of the smallest bells.

Yesterday I went to Staples. The place was crowded with parents holding lists, filling baskets and dragging kids from aisle to aisle. One mother asked her son if he wanted red or blue three ring binders. He told her he didn’t care. The boy had back to school blues and buying school supplies was about the last thing he wanted to be doing.

My mother bought the usual for our return to school. We always got new shoes, usually Buster Brown’s which were sturdy and lasted most of the year. If we had grown out of our uniforms, we got new blue skirts and new white blouses. My brother got new pants and white shirts. We wore ties with our uniforms, blue clip-ons that looked like cowboys might wear them to a hoedown for the girls and bow ties for the boys. We always got new ones because the old ties had been tossed at the end of the previous year. They took a beating because after school every day we’d stuffed them in our school bags for the walk home, and there they’d stay until the next morning. Pencil boxes and school bags were next on the list. I always liked shopping for those. My favorite pencil boxes had everything except duct tape: regular pencils, colored pencils, a small thin 6 inch ruler, a half circle ruler, a pencil sharpener and an eraser. My school bag had both a handle and a strap for over the shoulder. I used to try it on to see how it felt. We’d buy lined white paper with red margins and one Indian tablet. I remember I’d put all my supplies in and out of the school bag until I thought they were just right.

It didn’t matter whether we liked school or not on that first day. It was exciting to put on new clothes and shoes and walk to school. We’d discuss the teacher we were getting because we always knew. We alternated: one year a nun, the next year a real person.

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