PAPER CHAINS OF TIME

In my kid-years the middle of December had the longest days of all rather than the shortest because it seems Christmas would never arrive.  The hours dragged by in fourth grade for me.  I could hear the big round clock over the classroom door click each time a second passed and I tried to figure just how many seconds it was until the big day, but I gave up.  Math was not my strongest skill.  The numbers are too big.  (Editor’s note:  This was before calculators and laptops in every kid's backpack because they are a necessity.)  

At this time of the weary year I bet teachers still imagined all kids really like to make red and green paper chains stuck together with paste from the giant jar of white stuff only found in elementary schools. (This obsequious school tool has been tasted at least once by every student in the world  to find out if it as edible as it looks – it’s not!)  Students, however, still do prefer making paper chains better than figuring long division problems.

Miss R. announced as class begun two weeks before the big day that we were going to make decorations for the Bacon School Christmas tree that stood in the gleaming marble foyer across from the big double doors that we were never allowed to use unless our parents had come to chat with the principal about our misdemeanors, endeavors or lack of such.   So we began an annual task that I hated almost as much as waiting for Christmas - working on the paper chain gang.  As we started the paste’s medicinal-like smell permeated the room.  We all worked as slow as we could.  If we played this task right our chain building would take us right up to our lunch period and the aroma of peanut butter and jelly would replace the paste fumes if we were sure to wash our hands as we were reminded to do constantly by Miss R.

After producing at least 4 miles of paper chains and then having our half hour of eating freedom we returned to Room 103 and to our next assignment - making construction paper snowflakes.  Miss R reviewed our crafting instructions, “First select a color of your choice from the construction paper bin.  Carefully cut it into four small squares, minding your fingers.  Fold it once in half…then again…cut a ‘creative’ design…you then unfold it and you will discover a wonderfully unique snowflake… blah blah blah.”  (Now each of us have been doing this since we were 3 but we listened and asked questions because this “lesson” also took up more arithmetic time hoping this work might take the rest of the day  and  one day closer to the greatest day of the year.

Clip, clip, clip…        

The room sounded like the final exam at barber school.  It replaced the tick of the big clock for me.  And then wa-la we had jointly produced 558 colored snowflakes that strangely all looked somewhat alike and none were white like they are supposed to be?  Our room had run out of white construction paper in September.  We proud artisans marched out to the hallowed marble hall and reverently adorned the boughs of a real, very fragrant tree…that was already dropping its needles on the pristine granite…

...and like a paper chain of time, link by link, we were one day closer to Christmas vacation.