Can it really be back to school time already? Surely not! Didn’t summer break just begin?
Just to make certain I pulled up the calendars for Scott County Schools and the Forest Municipal School District and sure enough the kiddos head back to the classroom tomorrow. That’d be Thursday.
I reckon we all need to be a little more careful coming and going in the coming weeks as the big yellow buses start making their rounds and the little ones are rushing to board and not be late.
Obviously there are a bunch more of them out there this week. Kids on the street sides waiting on buses. Kids in cars hauling more kids in their cars to school with them. Teachers and parents and more kids and kids and kids.
Keep an eye out for them. You never know when one might dash out from behind a tree to jump on the bus or dash off the bus to jump behind a tree. Some young drivers will be late and hurrying a little too fast on a rain-dampened roadway. That is if it ever rains enough to rain-dampen the roadways in this heat!
Some of them might be first-time drivers strutting their stuff a little and some of them might be stressed-out parents trying their best to drop off everyone at all the right places at just the right times.
So, do be careful out there. Be careful out there all the time, but especially these first couple weeks of school.
As for you parents, y’all try and keep your cool at the ball games, and with the teachers, and with the students and all that homework and with all those science projects, and reading projects and all those other projects that can sometimes be a little overwhelming. A lot overwhelming. I was in your shoes one time and I remember those days well.
You teachers have a little sympathy for the parents, too. They don’t always understand the directions or the reasoning behind your requests, but I assure you most of them are trying.
You kids study hard, practice hard and play hard. Eat right, get plenty of sleep and don’t stay out late at night and make your parents worry. They need their sleep too.
I, too, wish this summer had not shot by so fast. Most folks know my wife is a school teacher and she also teaches summer school during the month of June so our vacation date options are limited to July. I wish the schools would all move to the modified schedule and go year round.
I’m not certain how all that really works but from a selfish standpoint, it would give my little family a few more options, date wise, for long weekend excursions and the like.
We were in New Orleans over the weekend squeezing in a little trip before the bells of school start tolling and I would much rather make that little trip when the thermometer isn’t blowing the mercury out of the top of its head.
I will say, though, it was cooler in the Big Easy this past Friday and Saturday than it was right here at home. Unloading the car upon return was a chore in the blazing sun and I’m pretty sure my lungs got scorched just a little bit too.
The plants looked like they had been sitting on the devil’s front porch instead of mine and when I picked a little bell pepper for a dish we were having for dinner I do believe it was half done already. Perhaps it will break soon. If not, just remember to stay on the right side of God because hell’s supposed to be a lot hotter than this.
Anyway, back to that back to school business. The countdown is on. The pizza, and spaghetti, and fried chicken, and green beans, and French fries, and cookies, and cake are waiting in the cafeteria, assuming that cafeteria food hasn’t changed a whole lot in the 50 years since I was in elementary school.
The floors are waxed, the walls are painted, the schedules are prepared, and the tardy slips are ready to be filled out. The mercury is up, it’s August in Mississippi and school is once again in session. Here’s hoping everyone has a great year.
