THE LAST DAY

 

The Kid Year is marked with waiting and hoping…of course the First day of School starts the sands running through the glass.  Next the first day off – Columbus Day.  And when I went to school we celebrated the days on the days they happened.  (And Mr. Lincoln had his own day).  Good ole Christopher – if he had fallen off the edge we would not have had the repast from arithmetic and spelling in his honor.  Next was the mysterious NJEA day-off when our teachers went to Atlantic City where they learned of new torture devices and discovered never ending textbooks about the exports of South America or even longer words for us to memorize.  And Turkey Day came – which meant that the biggie – The Christmas Vacation was coming in just a couple of ponderous weeks of work.  But on the plus side; we spent a lot of time drawing Christmas cards, stringing popcorn for the class tree and making those red and green construction paper chains that festooned our dull and musty chamber of edification.  

And so my 4th grade year passed and we grew and learned in spite of our day dreams. By March I now knew that Bolivia exports tin.  By Easter break, I was spelling every word correctly on those hated narrow test slips.  I had read most of the Evangeline and could recite the Gettysburg address from memory.  I was becoming a real learned scholar as our teacher, Miss Ruhlander – the Terror of Bacon School, often told us should be our goal in life.  I personally would rather play first base for the Phillies – (Author’s Note: Both goals would never to be met)

And then the trees popped and the classroom windows were pushed up as summer vacation crept up on us.  The big one.  Weeks and weeks and weeks of fun…swimming in Union Lake…baseball till dusk...staying up late.  This is what we worked so “hard” for all year -to get it over with.

And like clockwork - the last day came even though we were sure it wouldn't.  We turned in our books and their condition was noted by our teacher on the inside of the jacket.  Mine were all listed as “Good” (even though one was 22 years old) and I was very relieved that my grocery bag covers had done their job through snow, sleet and dropping the big reading tome in a large puddle.  Mother would not have to pay for any books with broken backs or torn pages this year.  The clock ticked down and the buzzer buzzed.  We bid Miss R goodbye and raced out the door.  Our kid year was completed.  Yelps and hoots echoed off the brick walls.   And we all had high hopes.  We knew great new fun filled with exciting adventures in the warm summer sun was awaiting us. Yippee !!!

It took about a week and a half for terminal boredom to envelop me. It rained a lot that summer.  I started to yearn for fifth grade to come as quickly as possible.  Ah, such is real life.  Expectation for the most part exceeds reality…the imagination tops being almost every time.  

Even for a 4th grader.