| Dreading
Back to School |
| This whole back-to-school thing gives me the Willies. It
reminds me too much of when I was nine years old and summer
was coming to an end. |
| Oh, sure, I liked school well enough, but it wasn't like
I didn't see my friends during the summer. My classmates lived
in my neighborhood, so I saw them all the time¤fall, winter,
spring and summer. |
| To me summer was like perpetual recess: play ball, eat,
build a fort, go down to the Saginaw River to swim, play some
more ball, eat, play a game of Red Rover and get home before
the street lights went on. |
| That was the only rule. |
| Get home before the street lights went on. |
| And even then there was still time to play cards, glue an
airplane together or listen to the radio. No television to
ruin an evening. |
| I have to admit I was a pretty lucky kid up through the
fourth grade: Fremont Elementary School was right across the
street from my house. When school was in session I would listen
for the bell to ring and could actually get to my classroom¤running
straight across Marsac Street¤before the bell stopped. Well,
usually. |
| But summer was not meant for that. Summer was for red pop
and 15-cent movies and sleeping in the basement because the
second floor was too hot. Summer was for sneaking around the
neighborhood and listening to what Mr. Borch was yelling about. |
| I grew up in a real neighborhood, with Poles, Swedes, Germans,
Lutherans, Catholics and Jews all making sure you behaved
yourself. They wouldn't let us get away with anything. Say
a dirty word and your dad knew about it before supper. Get
in a fight and you ended up in your room¤the hot upstairs
room¤until the next day. Just because Mrs. Jankowski squealed
on you. |
| Everybody had a front porch back then. They were sort of
like guard towers at a prison yard. |
| All the neighbors sat on those porches in the warm summer
evenings keeping tabs on what was going on. That was a neighborhood,
especially in the summer before the Michigan winters got too
cold for the porches. But by then it was too cold to do much
outside anyway, except sled and build snow forts. Who could
get in trouble doing that? |
| But for a 9-year-old kid, summer was the best part of growing
up, and I dreaded it when it was time to go back to school. |
| I really can't remember shopping for back to school stuff.
I think I used the pencils and pads from the year before,
and if my clothes didn't fit me in the fall, I just wore my
older brothers' pants and shirts. |
| The end of summer was also the time when my mom took all
four boys in our family to Dr. Orlen Johnson for exams, signatures
for the school nurses, and¤the most awfulest of all¤shots. |
| I really believe I grew up thinking going back to school
was going to Dr. Johnson for shots. |
| But as luck would have it, school eventually got underway
every September. |
| And, you know, the more summers that ended and the more
the school bell rang the more I learned to like going back
to school. Even with those shots still stinging my arm. |
| And even though I had to trade my ball glove in for a geography
book and my Red Ryder bow and arrow set in for a history book,
I slowly learned there was a whole big world out there beyond
my neighborhood. |
| My fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Howell, taught me about Africa
and Europe and South America, and about the wonderful worlds
of science and numbers and words and writing and singing. |
| As winter set in for a few months, school became a beacon
for me. Slowly, summer didn't seem as important as it did
the year before. And thanks to my teachers, I actually began
to like going back to school. |
| Until June, that is. When it was summer time again and time
to play ball and build forts. |
| Isn't being a kid grand? |
| |
| Herndon:
Established in 1858 |
| This just in: |
| Richard Downer, president of HRI Associates, former Herndon
town councilman, Herndon history expert, Elden Street Players
volunteer and, well, you get the picture, sends this note
concerning the proposed license plate for the Town of Herndon: |
| "We may be missing a historical opportunity by using the
'Incorporated 1879' instead of the year the Town was actually
named, which was 1858. The fact that the depot dates to 1858
supports the earlier date as well as official USPS records,
W&OD records and the story of how the Town got its name. |
| "We have documentation that the post office was officially
named Herndon in 1858 which is when the community was really
established. The incorporation date is really a governmental
formality, although a significant one. |
| "From a community and public relations standpoint, I personally
believe it would be more accurate to say either 'Founded 1858'
or 'Established 1858.'" |
| First votes in: All council members sounding off said they
prefer "Established 1858." We concur. |
| And that's Our Town this week. |
