As far as weather goes, September is one of the best months in Washington. What little bit of heat we've had is gone, and it's a little chilly, but after the morning coolness, the days are all blue skies and sunshine - until it isn't. With the end of summer, the rain comes sneaking back. I really don't mind the rain in the fall. It has that bittersweet feel that fall always has for me - endings and beginnings. Snuggling with the girls after school in front of the fireplace with hot chocolate. Sometimes we even do that in the summer just to bring back the cozy feeling.
This September of 2024 probably won't be one I remember fondly unless someone does something exceptional. I have my wisdom tooth extraction to worry about, and in spite of it being just a dental procedure, I'm overly concerned about it. Who wants someone prying a 50-year-old tooth off your jawbone. The oral surgeon was a little vague about how he was going to do it - wanting to spare me, I guess - but my imagination is enough to cause some anxiety. I'm going to adopt Mike's attitude and not do too much research on this procedure, especially that anomaly where taking medications for osteoporosis in your younger days might be disastrous one day to your facial bones. Lalalala. Not thinking about it.
Emily will be with me, so that will help. I will already have celebrated my birthday with whatever festivities there will be since I can't consume anything but liquids for 2-3 weeks. Right now, ice cream and mashed potatoes don't sound that bad, but I know they will get old quickly.
So, Septembers in my childhood always meant starting back to school after a long hot summer of boredom. How I loved going into that classroom with the new-pencil and crayon smells with the boys all in their new jeans and girls in their plaid dresses. That's when we got our new shoes for the year - not our first pair of new shoes, but the shoes that were intended to last until spring if our feet didn't grow too fast. I loved everything about school. First grade was a breeze, because, even though I didn't go to kindergarten, I already knew my ABCs and numbers, and that was about it. Amazingly, I wasn't bored because I got to put all those letters together to make words and sentences and learned to READ.
Mike was always in my school, but we didn't really know each other. If you didn't live in the same neighborhood or go to the same church, there were no outside activities to speak of in 1952.
Second grade was harder because my teacher was not the first-year-out-of-college Miss Campbell but a white-haired stern teacher named Mrs. McEachern. I'm sure she was an excellent teacher and a really nice person, but she terrified me. The only time she ever showed impatience with me was when I demonstrated my lifelong inability to be neat. My Puzzle Pages were a disaster. You know, those squares where you cut out pictures and place them in chronological order? I could do it at a glance, but somehow my pages all stuck together or I glued them down upside-down. I still struggle with crafty things that require glue. Or neatness. Basically all crafts.
I had good teachers, old and young throughout my six years at East Three Notch, and my uncle Radney happened to be principal. It didn't benefit me any. I doubt I had the courage to speak to him at school, but he would take the cousins and me to the school while he worked during the summer. We were pretty good, I think, but there were the times when we would get a mouthful of water from the water fountain upstairs and go spit it over the balcony in the auditorium. I think the janitor squealed on us.
I had all our school pictures separated and chronological not too many months ago, but I had to stow them somewhere temporarily, and they just got all mixed in with the others. I did find our fourth-grade ones. We seem to be a little more put together. I still had to have curls and a plaid dress. I believe my grandmother made every item of clothing I had all through school.
September in high school and college meant more new beginnings and football games. I didn't know the first thing about football except you picked your teams and cheered for them, and the games were so much fun. I was in the band for maybe a few years. I thought it would be more fun than it was, but I was basically wanting to go on the out-of-town bus trips with my friends and forgot you had to learn to play an instrument at the same time you marched. I decided it was more important for me to stay in formation during our halftime shows than to give them the few notes I could muster up, so I "carried" a clarinet in the marching band. I think I did contribute a little in the spring in the concert band.
In the fall of ninth grade, I had my first boyfriend, Jim, and as soon as we had one date where his sister drove us to the Martin Theater, his dad took a job at Troy State College, and their family moved away. He sometimes got to come back to the games, so the only time I ever saw him was when the band took a break after halftime. Great. My first boyfriend, and I saw him about 15 minutes a week, if that, but we did go on a leaf-hunting trip that I remember as one of those perfect crisp fall days where your life stretches out before you and the future looks so bright. Unfortunately, it didn't include my friend Jim. The 50-mile distance between our homes took its toll, and we drifted apart after two dates. And one prom a couple of years later. We did run into each other in the fall when we were both in college at Troy. Actually, he was then friends with my current boyfriend and later husband, so we had a few more pleasant conversations before our lives went off into separate paths.
But first a glimpse of us on the front row - 3rd from the left and 4th from the left. Maybe that picture was when we first started talking. Who knows? Lots of familiar faces but also a lot of faces that are no longer here. That was 64 years ago when we were so young.
Once again, I've spent too much time looking at old pictures, and my morning is gone. I hope I will post more of these old pictures where they're easy to get to. As crazy as they might look to our grandchildren, this is the way we were and pretty happy about it too.
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