back to school

 

My neighbourhood is filled with schools.  I live close enough to hear the elementary school buzzer.  My kids never had to rely on buses or rides. A ten-minute walk and they’d arrive … whether it was kindergarten, middle years, or senior high. 

While my own children have walked on into adulthood … new kids now pass the house …  I get to witness the body language of young students. Some wear brightly coloured backpacks on their slender backs and skip with absolute glee. “Wait up!” their parents call when they look up from their cell phones. (Yes, it’s a sign of our times).  Other kids, move more slowly, dragging their feet as anxiety weighs them down. 

Middle graders often form small packs … girls quietly talking amongst themselves, boys several feet apart, guffawing and shoving each other along their zigzag way.  Not all of course … there are always the loners, the shufflers, or the ones wearing their headphones, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings. And the cyclists … waving as they pass their friends on the sidewalks. 

Then there’s the senior high crowd. These now are mostly loners. Different start times for different classes. So many ways to drift apart.  Headphones on, unlike their younger counterparts, they don’t joke, they don’t push, and they definitely don’t skip. Cars squeal past driven by older classmates or some, with ‘novice driver’ in the back window, crawl with excess caution towards the overcrowded school parking lot. 

In Waltraut, my protagonist also lives close to a school. A chain link fence surrounds the playground and school patrols lord over a potentially dangerous intersection. You’ll have to read the book to see how she feels about the walk to Riverview Elementary, back in 1965.  In spite of the cell phones, maybe not so much has changed when it comes to getting to school on time.