SimplyMom: The Time Warp

Posted by Mary

I went to my son’s back to school night last night. Of course, this whole month has been one long back to school night for me, pretty much. First I had BTS night at the middle school, just a week after my youngest son started sixth grade there. The following week, we “bts-ed” at the local elementary school, where the baby girl is attending half day afternoon kindergarten.

But it’s always extra weird to go to back to school night at the high school for me, because the high school where my middle son is now a freshman was my high school. “Alma mater, thee we hail, the Eagles’ strength shall e’re prevail.” Yes, I still remember the whole song. Don’t even try to hide the snickers. I had to know it – I was in choir, y’all. I was in choir, because I was in just about anything I could be in high school. I was also in the National Honor Society, girls’ soccer, the annual musical and on the yearbook staff. I wrote for the newspaper, and I voted as part of the student council. I was an International Thespian, secretary of the Interact Club and a member in good standing of the Wildlife Biology Club (though Lord knows why – Biology Honors was my Achilles heel, the one “B” that kept me off the Principal’s List back when I was a sophomore.

Why was I such a joiner? I just thought it was the thing to do, I guess. I never felt pretty or popular (though I was, in fact, cute and well-liked), so I thought I could only impress by filling every spare minute with activity. I may not end up on the prom court, but I would have a list of activities two inches long in the Senior section of the yearbook. (Both true.)

So, anyway, last night I was back there, in the halls of academia where I spent so much time during my formative years. And those hallways and classrooms looked exactly the same as I remembered. Oh, sure, there was an addition made a decade ago, but that houses administrative offices, a guidance suite and an expanded library. The classrooms are still the same; the halls are still long and cool, the green and white tiles liberally decorated with hand-colored signs proclaiming a bake sale for the Renaissance Club or the scheduled activities for Spirit Week leading up to homecoming (tickets to be sold in the cafeteria).

It’s strange how high school stirs up nostalgia for all but the most jaded of us. One of my favorite books ever was The Cheerleader by Ruth Doan MacDougall, a fictionalized account of her high school years in the late 50’s in New Hampshire. I read it myself as a high school sophomore in the late 70’s in New Jersey, and I oh, so identified. Sure, Snowy and her gang wore poodle skirts and scuffed loafers and ponytails, while my group sported Landlubber jeans and Earth shoes and Bonne Bell lip gloss. But the longing, the dreaming, the confusion and sweetness of growing up – that was all the same, no matter what the decade, no matter what the decore.

I hope my son cherishes his time at our alma mater. He doesn’t have to throw himself into every activity, but I wish him the awareness most of us don’t have at that age – the awareness that each day is special, every choice is a growth opportunity, and youth is a fleeting and precious gift. He probably won’t, of course. After all, like Emily Webb asked in Our Town (which, by the way, was my favorite role in high school): “Do any human beings realize life as they live it? Every, every minute?”

We have to shake our heads on that one. But if my son’s really lucky, he’ll be able to look back like his mother does now – and smile.

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SimplyMom: The Time Warp

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