Back to School

Miraculously, after the heat and humidity that seemed to hang endlessly in the air, the temperature dropped last weekend. Autumn, signaling she is just in the wings. Dinner was moved from the porch into the dining room and the women were wrapped in shawls. The clothing a harbinger of the shift in seasons.

It isn’t just the change in temperature. As we approach September I believe all of us think about going “back to school.” A touch point for reflection. This summer I have spent time wandering through the mind’s memory palace walking back through my education, from kindergarten through college.

In mid-July my high school class gathered for our fiftieth reunion and I wrote about it in a “First Person” essay that appears in the September issue of New Hampshire Magazine. We were the Class of 1968, one of the most turbulent years of the Twentieth Century. It seemed appropriate to prepare for the reunion by returning to the beginning, before celebrating the closure.

Visiting the elementary school where we entered kindergarten and studied until sixth grade and looking down at the small wooden desks, it was impossible not to think about how the world has changed. There was an innocence in the community where we grew up and a feeling of peace that has disappeared. Not one of us could have imagined a school shooting. We played real games, like Candyland, not video games found on a device. We didn’t have devices, of course.

We were in junior high school when President John F. Kennedy was shot. School was dismissed after the devastating news was delivered over the intercom system. Not one of my former classmates has forgotten that day. On reflection we realize that was the moment when things began to shift. Living in a town nestled in the White Mountains on the north side of Franconia Notch we had been sheltered from much of what was happening in large urban centers.

I met my closest friend when we were freshman in college and in August we traveled back to our dorm on the campus where studied to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of our friendship. We arrived as freshman with portable typewriters and notebooks. We used a telephone that was mounted on the wall at the end of the hall and listened to the news and music on transistor radios.

Now students return to schools and campuses with a computer and a smart phone. Technological innovation will always play a role in changing how we live, and work and it is much more efficient to have one elegant device that can be used for taking notes, downloading textbooks, undertaking research and communicating with friends. Education benefits from the many advances in teaching tools and on-line courses for subjects that might not be available otherwise. As for me, I still prefer a notebook and writing with a real fountain pen.

I miss the anticipation of the first day of school. A new term. The opportunity to reconnect with friends. The acknowledgement that you are now one year older and closer to a step-up ceremony or a graduation. The beginning of a cycle in life comes with the knowledge and anticipation of change that can serve as inspiration for the future.

It’s difficult for me to make it through August without enrolling in a course, of one sort or another, even if it’s just over a weekend. After all it means I’m going back to school and have an excuse to purchase a new journal.