Paving Paradise

My favourite farmer’s field is morphing into a new neighbourhood. This particular field grew my first paid article a few years back. I’d wandered through the July wheat as a thunder storm danced closer. Nature’s drama. My piece, published in the local paper, compared it to the fringe festival that was happening concurrently.

Now I’m not knocking change. It’s a sign of life. However, I couldn’t help but think of the song, “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” this morning as a cement truck rolled into the field just as a dump truck carried out a load of fertile top soil.  Turns out my neighbour was right: they scrape off the good soil, so it can later be sold back to the new home owners.

I picked a fall bouquet of wildflowers out there today. I never used to, but now I figure, it’ll all get bulldozed anyway. Later I might get charged to see them...in a plant museum. 

Thanks for the music, Joni!

First Day of School

I read that in Russia, students bring flowers to the teacher and receive balloons in return. That sounds like it could be a lot of flowers!

 

Over in Germany, it’s been a two hundred year tradition to give young students a large paper cone or ‘Schultüte’ on the first day of school. The cone is stuffed with candy, small toys and even (!) school supplies. The photo on the left dates back to 1936. (Zeulenroda, Wittig Archiv).

That tradition was not part of my life here in Canada. I remember the mixed emotions of my first day at kindergarten. I couldn’t speak English. My mom arranged for an older girl from the neighbourhood to pick me up and deposit me at the school. I remember the other girls’ pretty dresses, but have no memory of my own. I do recall, though, that by grade one I’d become quite comfortable with Dick, Jane, Sally, Spot and Puff.  And that’s where the wedge between my double life began. There was my German immigrant family at home and my English language world of books. As I grew, so did the rift.  So I have some empathy for the issues facing new immigrants and their children starting school here in Canada.

Now-a-days, back-to-school often means a fancy licensed backpack with matching school supplies.  An expensive time for parents, especially those with several children. We live close to a school and when I see the kids walk by, holding a parent’s hand, on these first days, I get nostalgic for my own kids’ schooldays. However, my bank account appreciates the end of back-to-school.

I used to take time off work during the week of back-to-school, just to be there for any jitters or tears or happy cheers. Kids facing the world on their own.  A special time for them. A learning-to-let-go (just a little) time for parents.

Now, it’s just me and Buddy watching the foot traffic eagerly skipping by on their way to school.  Happy first day to all!