Then the . . . school-boy, with his satchel and shining morning face . . .

Today is one of my favorite days: the day when the kids in the community go back to school. I got up and took my coffee onto the front porch to watch the steady stream of children passing by the house to go to the local elementary school. It's called Trombley and it is the school all of our children attended. Nowadays there are many parents who drive their children to school, citing fears of child molesters and obviously I can't blame them, but I have such happy memories of the days when our children all walked to school, together with Brenda and Leslie, Billy, Ian and Sheila, Joe and Chuck and Daniel. At one point we had eighteen children under twelve in four adjacent houses, and the friendships far outweighed the fights. The picture below is a little faded now, but it was taken on the first day of school in 1978 and shows the neighborhood kids congregating on our porch on the first day of school. That's Lucy peering through the door, wondering when she could be part of the action.


The photo at the top of the post was taken in 1976. Andrew was starting kindergarten, Elizabeth was going into second grade (where did I get that dress?), Kate was starting third grade and Al, already too tall for the photo, was enrolled in fourth grade. We took a photo like this every year.

Ours is a fairly good school system: not all school systems are run as well. I draw your attention to a book that will be published on October 7, although there will be copies in some stores starting September 15. The book is Cheating Our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education (St. Martin's, $24.95) and the author is Joe Williams. Joe wrote about education in Milwaukee and now covers that beat for the New York Daily News. He is also Marcie's brother. His book was reviewed in this week's Washington Post (see middle of page) and can be ordered at a pre-publication price from Amazon. Teachers and parents will find it interesting and pertinent.

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No winners in the Cultural Literacy test #1. The answer was Twelfth Night, Act II, scene III.

So the prize is still unclaimed and will be given to the first person to identify the title of this post.