dallasb32@yahoo.com
I heard the warnings but didn't really pay much attention to them.
Those warnings were from friends who have experienced the transitions of their
kids’ school years. Their warnings of “Your kids’ school years will fly by”
were right on target. Even though my teenage daughter is just entering the
transition from middle to high school, I can see how time is like sand through
the hourglass. I can vividly remember her days of elementary school when she
roamed the halls of Colbert Elementary. I can remember her first day as I
escorted her to class with neither of us knowing what to expect. I remember the
Field Days at the end of each school year, the parent/teacher conferences, the
school programs, and even times of squeezing myself in the small seat in the
lunchroom when having lunch with her from time to time. It all seems like
yesterday. My friends were right. Those five years of elementary school seem as
if they were just a couple of months ago.
Then my friends warned me of the transition from elementary to middle
school; their warnings of how our kids seemingly change overnight from day one
of middle school. My friends were once again right on target. I do remember the
transition well, but the middle school years seem like a blur. It was as if
someone pushed down on the accelerator of time and in the blink of an eye,
middle school was history. High school is next; the home stretch before she
walks across the stage wearing a cap and gown. I’m feeling older as I write
this column.
As we strolled through the Freshman Academy during Open House at
the start of the school year, I began to feel a sigh of relief. Not that sigh a
parent feels when their child has finally reached high school, but a thankful
sigh of relief that I’m not the one going to school. While walking the halls
trying to find classrooms, I saw familiar sights that gave me flashbacks of my
days in school. I saw panic on the faces of freshman. Their faces told the
story. Feelings of being lost and feelings of the unknown were all too familiar
to me. Again, I was thankful that I was on the outside, as a parent, looking in
and wasn't in their shoes on that night.
While walking through those halls, flashbacks from my school days
were rapidly running through my mind. Those flashbacks took me back, not necessarily
those of high school, but my earlier school years. I flashed back to my first
grade year and the times that I would wear red rubber rain boots to school
almost every day. I’m still not sure why I had an obsession with those boots
and I was too young to have thoughts of starting a new trend. They just felt
right and gave me some sense of security and yes, I was reminded often of how
stupid I looked in them. In today’s time, they would fit right in with some of
the dress styles we see around us.
My elementary school was an old four story building with hardwood
floors that would shine bright from the several layers of built up wax. The old
Leslie Elementary School in Greenwood, South Carolina was leveled many years
ago and the grounds now serve as a parking lot for Lander University. But as I
daily walked those floors in route to the lunchroom, I would always cross paths
with my brother who was three grades ahead of me. He would never pass on the
opportunity to greet me by holding up two fingers symbolizing the peace sign. I
guess that was his way of comforting me as a first grader. We were opposites in
many ways. Teachers would often contact my parents to schedule conferences for
two reasons; one because I wouldn't talk enough, and two because my brother
talked too much.
We all have our vivid memories and stories from our school days of
the past. They were either good memories or ones that we tend to deposit in the
horror sections of our memory banks. But for me, a little boy who never had
much to say, it still seems like only yesterday that I walked around those old
school hallways sporting my red rubber rain boots. Time flies!
