Going Back-to-School, Way Back

By Terri Nighswonger

As my e-mail inbox fills with facts, press releases and stories about the latest and greatest in back-to-school gear, and as I wrap up preparation for the August issue, I started thinking about what it might have been like to head back to school in the good ‘ole days. You are free to define “good ‘ole days” however you like.

For me, the year was 1967. Lyndon Johnson was president, the first-ever Super Bowl was played and the most popular television show of that year was The Andy Griffith Show. Sesame Street began broadcasting that year and Dr. Christian Bernard performed the first heart transplant in Cape Town , South Africa . The Dirty Dozen was a popular movie. I was oblivious to all of it.

As most dutiful parents do, I have pictures of me standing in the driveway of my home getting ready for my first day of kindergarten. My straight blond hair was neatly combed and I wore a dress. That’s right, a dress (probably why I hate wearing them now). I walked to school every day, although I don’t remember with whom on my first day. My stay-at-home mom likely took the time to take me there and back the first day. After that, my older brother probably had the job.

My first teacher’s name was Mrs. Neal. I only remember that because my dad’s name is Neil. I thought that was really neat at the time. I also remember having to walk by a neighbor’s German shepherd that was chained to the garage. Every day I was scared of that dog. One day I was crying in school and Mrs. Neal asked why. I told her I was scared of the dog. When she asked if someone would walk me home another neighbor boy raised his hand. “I’d walk her home but I’m scared too.”

Forty years later, my parents and likely his too, still get a kick out of telling that story.

I recently asked my mother to tell me about her remembrances of school “first days” in the mid-1940s. She started school when she was 6 and attended a one-room school house about a mile up the road from where my grandfather and grandmother farmed acres of wheat, corn and alfalfa and raised cattle, and a few hogs and chickens.

She walked to school every day or rode a bicycle and was accompanied by her dog Elmer who waited in the school vestibule for her and her friends to come out for recess. Sometimes the St. Bernard mix got bored and went home, she said, but he was a regular fixture in her early school days. Move over Lassie.

I was surprised to hear that the highlight of my mom’s back-to-school preparations were a new pair of shoes and a new dress every year. School supplies consisted of crayons and pencils and a Big Chief tablet. Sounds familiar.

“It was always fun to go back to school because living in the country I didn’t have any neighbors to play with. School was a time when I got to see my friends who I hadn’t seen all summer,” she told me.

She added a few tidbits as she reminisced. The girls wore dresses every day to school and they had one teacher for eight grades. The teacher lived with a nearby farm family during the school year. The schoolhouse was heated with coal or wood and my mom brought her lunch in a metal lunch pail. She usually ate a sandwich and a cookie with milk in a thermos. Later, when she went to high school in town, she lived with a relative and came home on the weekends.

I was reminded of my own kids’ “first-day” of school a few years ago when I was looking through some old pictures. My husband was out of the country so I took a picture to send him via e-mail. They were all fresh-faced with new clothes and backpacks and ready to face the world. In a few weeks they’ll slump out the door as teenagers – one as a senior taking junior college courses, one to start high school and two to continue their trek through middle school. They won’t be too excited about having their picture taken but I might just have to do it anyway. For posterity.

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Terri Nighswonger is editor of Family magazines and is looking forward to having the kids go back to school.