School days, school days....

  
I can't tell you how delighted I was . . .
not to be boarding a school bus this morning.  Or even putting someone else on a school bus. There's something very liberating about not being bound by that particular calendar, after spending years of your life being a slave to it.

However, I have to admit that when the school supplies show up at my local Target every year, I excitedly look them over.  First, because I have sort of a thing for office supplies.  Really a nerd for them.  But second, because who can resist the allure of a brand new box of crayons, tips perfectly squared off in little points just waiting to spill their colors and secrets across a clean page?  And the empty notebooks so eager to meet arriving pens and pencils. It's hard to ignore (and something usually finds its way home with me).

So maybe I was a little harsh 

in my judgment of this old ad the other day:

There is something of a new beginning to fall, 

forever ingrained from that youthful return to routine 

that compelled us yearly to re-harness our brains

and our energies and take some steps forward.

Oh the days spent surveying my closet, looking for the perfect way to perhaps reinvent (or at the very least, reintroduce) myself on the fateful first day!  My first day of jr. high and first day of high school outfits stick out in my mind in particular.  Looking back on the 7th grade ensemble, I sort of wonder what I was thinking.

But the glorious 9th grade outfit?!

I had spent the summer babysitting with the back-to-school issue of Seventeen Magazine on my lap (I can still see the cover), amassing my fortune to assemble THE makeup and hairstyle and clothing that would virtually guarantee my success.  Sadly, late 1970's Salt Lake City was woefully behind the coasts, so that put me distinctly out of step with my classmates.  If I'd been heading back to school in NY?  Or maybe 2 years later? Popularity guaranteed.  In my real life? Not so much.

And it was a terribly hot day, and I had a long walk home, and my outfit involved charcoal-blue eye shadow, corduroy and flannel (okay -- but SUPER AWESOME corduroy and flannel -- baby-blue Levis big-bell cords! And the plaid shirt had a drawstring waist and some sort of groovy neckerchief thing attached!)

Of course I put my own stamp on it with perfectly coordinated blue fringed moccasins, which probably would have immediately disqualified me in NY as well, but....

At the time I thought it was well worth the sweaty sacrifice.  Today it makes me smile and explains a whole lot about my entire school social experience. 

Anyway, as I watched the neighborhood kiddies lined up for the bus this morning (and the nervous mothers congregating with their cameras), I had to wonder if perhaps I shouldn't do a little fall-tune up myself.  You know, re-harness my energies, dive into a new challenge, get ready to take some steps forward. It might take my mind off a few things, like whether or not the snowblower will start when we need it in a few weeks.

It made me think of these lines Charles Osgood (my hero! but that's another post)
used to close his broadcast on Sunday morning:

It's true that summer's all but gone --

But straight ahead, and carry on!
  

*sigh... 

Okay, fall.....let's do this thing.