The traffic on our avenue has increased, with teachers finding spots on the street, and parents trying to find a place to park momentarily while they escort their offspring to their classrooms.
School has started and there’s an energy in the air as we watch what’s happening on this first week of the educational season. Some arrive early, others show up on time and then there’s the stragglers, the families that have obviously had some at-home crisis that delayed their arrival.
When they do show up, it takes little attention to notice their distress, especially when a parent appears in slippers and pajamas and children grab their backpacks and run as fast as they can towards the school building. One cannot help but laugh at the slippered parent clomping along trying to catch up.
Right now, inside those classrooms, students will be greeting old friends and welcoming newcomers to their classes and teachers will be working to keep the students engaged in what is being taught in math, and science and reading, writing and all those other subjects that have names unfamiliar to someone who graduated a half-century ago.
If I and others my age were back in the classroom of our memories, we would be writing that dreaded but inevitable essay on the topic: “what I did during my summer vacation.”
No one back then knew anything about privacy laws, nor did we have the nerve to tell our teachers that what we did really had no relevance to a chemistry formula or how different forms of triangles interact to make a better curler.
No, we blindly and faithfully wrote paragraphs and sentences detailing the 60 days we had been free to stop thinking about those triangles and formulas.
Supposedly those essays gave our teachers an opportunity to prepare for the real classroom learning that would take place after Labour Day Monday. The essays also provided a glimpse into what we had remembered or forgotten about sentence structure, grammar and spelling. Method in their madness, one might say.
So disregarding today's privacy laws, I am disappointed but not surprised to report that our summer appeared shorter than usual, what with May and June being snarky as far as warmth and decent weather was concerned.
Despite the contrariness of those early months, we had a few events that gave us some happy pleasures as we went about enjoying summer holidays.
The reality of our senior age was starkly evident this summer. On a trip to Alberta we attended a welcome-to-the-world party for a great, great niece. She had no idea we were there and in her later years will wonder who those old people are in the photos.
On that same trip we also met, for the first time, a great, great nephew who played shy until Housemate got out the camera and we saw his rock star moment.
That trip also allowed us to celebrate a nephew’s 60th birthday and to spend time with his family and with his brother’s family. Seeing my late brother’s face in the faces of his children and grandchildren was somewhat eerie.
Back at home, we also spent two occasions with a great niece and her daughter, our great great niece who we think has an acting career in her future. She taught us to say “thank you” and “you’re welcome”, over and over and over, and also to do the “cheers” routine with whatever we might be drinking.
A second and third cousin from Housemate’s side of the family also visited and spent time with us in Wakamow at the playground built to keep little legs and minds occupied. Old legs and minds also enjoyed the bells and swinging contraption.
Add those family experiences to a number of events and activities from car shows to fairs, pie days and farmers’ markets and trade shows to street dances and concerts, some day trips and excursions to check out the crops and what do you have — a delightful, but short summer, with not enough time to see and do all that was offered.
Those times with tots and toddlers, teenagers, young adults and mature adult family members reinforced for us that our families’ legacies will continue long after we have departed for parts unknown.
Thus ends the summer essay — certainly worthy of at least a B Plus.
Joyce Walter can be reached at [email protected].
