Community Corner
Last Day of School, at a Time When Summer Stretched On and On
How the school year and summer vacation were once equal on the calendar of my mind
The last day of school: To step off the bus into summer vacation was to step into a different timescape.
Summer stretched out almost as long as the school year. What else could it be when it was days and days of Saturdays lined up one after the other? They were nearly equal, summer and the school year, September so far into the future it looked as far off as Christmas did in September, which, to me, was a long, long time indeed.
Summer was just about that long, with no end in sight, no worries until the fourth week of August found me, in dazed confusion, marched like a condemned man through Caldor’s to buy three-ring binders, loose-leaf paper, five-subject spiral notebooks and No. 2 pencils. My only coherent thought: Were there No. 1s and No. 3s and No. 4s I’d get to use in junior high school?
My view as a kid quirked time so two months and nine did carry nearly equal weight on the calendar.
But now, the last day of school triggers nothing more than another set of numbers. Nine or ten weekends, all booked with something before July 4th has passed. Three day-camp sessions. Two weeks vacation. And it’s over. Endless possibility turned into checklists and reminders blerping on my computer screen.
I have the memory of that sense of time for every bike ride on the trails, every trip to 7-11 for penny candy, every cannonball in Sprout Creek, every adventure we could think up, but not the feeling of it. Oh I’ve mustered a weak hint when walking out of work on the Friday before a week’s vacation, that is, until the first Metro-North delay, or logistics mayhem at the airport, or the two-hour line for the log flume.
Today, I will walk Patrick to Colonial and then sit out front and listen to the sounds of kids on the brink of summer. One hour of school until they leave for the long glory of vacation. They will spill out and off away. The adult in me wants to tell Patrick to revel in it because it will disappear so fast. What’s left of the kid knows telling him is the beginning of taking it away. For once, I will try to keep my mouth shut.
