Back To School

Its hard for me to believe that the kids are all back or going back to school already. Here in Florida the kids started going back three weeks ago! Some counties went back last week. Here in Lake county, where I live, the kids went back this past Monday. A lot of schools outside of Florida are returning back this coming Monday. Wow! Where does the time go? To me it seems like it was just the other day when all the kids were celebrating their last day of school before summer vacation. Why is our perception of time, as a adult, so much different then that of a kids. I remember when I was young and in school summer vacation seemed like it lasted forever! Especially during my elementary and middle school years. Those last days of school back then were a mixture of happiness and sadness. We were happy, ecstatic, to be finishing the school year but at the same time we were sad to be saying goodbye to our classmates. We knew it would be a long time ( there's that kids perception of time thing again ) before we saw them again and after all, we had spent almost everyday of the week with them since that school year had started and that school year had seemed like it had dragged on for two years at least! We would always end the school year sometime around the second week of June and we NEVER went back before Labor day. So honestly, we did get a couple more weeks back then then the kids do now but it still seemed like we had forever before we had to think of school again. My sister Kimberly and I had it pretty good growing up. Our long summer breaks always started off with a day or two at the beach. My Aunt Ev and her sister would rent a beach house for two weeks every year as soon as school ended and my mom would always take Kim and I down there for a day visit or two. My cousin Carol would be there and we would spend all day swimming and digging in the sand and making sand castles using a plastic pail that my mom would always get us on the way down there at one of those 5 and dime beach shops. She would usually get us one of those cheap inflatable rafts as well and I don't think we ever bought one that lasted the whole day without getting a hole in it and getting trashed. I remember thinking that my cousin was so lucky to be able to stay there in that rented house right on the beach for TWO whole weeks and do whatever she felt like doing. Then there were the countless sleepovers with other cousins. My cousin Tony Collins and his parents, my Aunt Doris and Uncle Jim. They had a swimming pool and we would always beg to go see them and yes, we always made sure we took our bathing suits. We'd be in that pool the whole time we would be there, coming out only to eat lunch and then do our customary wait for a half hour before going back in lest we develop severe cramps and possibly drown due to our inability to move our arms and legs. Whatever cruel parent came up with that torturous idea that was told to every kid back in that era. Occasionally we would get to visit my Aunt Melissa and Uncle Pete and their two kids, my cousins Candi and Shawn Short. They lived far away, about a hour and a half north of my family. Or it seemed far away to travel for two young kids like my sister and myself. Those summers back then were full of fun times for us young ins. As Kim and I got a little older chores were mixed into the fun times. We lived on a farm and my parents always had a huge garden that produced enough vegetables to feed half the town we lived in if there was ever a crisis of some sort to come up. Me and Kim would have to hoe and work that garden and we complained because it wasn't fair that since we ate nothing that came from it then why did we have to work and keep it up. The usual answer was hush up and do it cause I said you HAVE to do it so we did. Then a year or two after that grass cutting was added to the list. Then helping to feed and tend the forty or fifty head of cattle or the one or two hundred pigs we also raised. So as we got older going back to school was a relief of some sorts. We were spared the bulk of the hard labor we had to endure but even with that summer rolled along slowly and the fall took it's good old time arriving. When we were young we knew it was getting close when mom would start talking about needing to take us to look for some new clothes for school or coming home with new book bags that were stocked with wooden pencils and notebook paper for us. When we were older and being used for slave labor we of course knew the dates and we would start to actually anticipate the first day back to school. It always seemed to come right about the time that Kim and I would start swearing that we would NEVER have a farm and perform this kind of back breaking labor. And guess what. Kim and her husband Nick have a big garden every year and I fantasize about having and living on a farm. Now, all these years later and with two kids of my own, I'm shocked with the way the summers start and before you blink twice it's time for the kids to go back. I wonder if it feels like a long time to them like it did to me and my old classmates back then. Back when the years rolled along slowly and in no hurry at all. Like back when we had the world by it's tail and time was on our side. I sure hope so.