Published: August 18, 2009 09:51 pm         

Enjoy the excitement of back-to-school

Do you get all nostalgic when the kids return to school? Think about it.

When school resumes in the fall, it brings back happy memories of our own school days. Our minds go back to the dinner buckets we carried and the sandwiches they contained. Those meals were not fancy, but the biscuits with sausage or homemade bread with peanut butter tasted so delicious at noon or recess. There always were cupcakes, cookies, leftover cake or something for dessert. We usually saved that for last recess. Anything that was left was eaten on the way home from school.

The nights we stayed with Grandma, she made applesauce doughnuts, so we took them to school the next day with dill pickles or a sandwich. We ate lots of apples back then because we raised them in our orchard. We loved it when we were treated with oranges or bananas.

There certainly was more to the return to school than just our lunch boxes. One of the best memories was school supplies. Oh, what fun it was to shop for back-to-school necessities. We always went to the Rexal Drug Store and got cigar boxes for our pencils. We bought new crayons, pencils, tablet, paste and an eraser. I remember Mother made our paste many times. I wish I had that recipe. When we got a little older, we got ink and an ink pen. A ruler and scissors were necessary, but I do not remember that we bought them every year. We took care of our supplies and kept them from year to year or passed them down to the siblings.

We did not often have new books, but they were new to us as they had been handed down from the grade above us. The books were in good shape and hardly written in at all because we were taught to respect books. The only writing was the names of the pupils that had it before us. We were not lucky enough for them to have penciled in the answers for us.

Back then, Mother was busy before the beginning of school making dresses for us girls. She sewed all our clothes, even our bloomers. We got new socks and those brown brogan shoes that never seemed to wear out. Our feet hurt the first few weeks we wore them because we had been going barefoot all summer. We hated the blisters we got until our feet toughened up and the shoes began to shape. Some of the students got high top tennis shoes but we never did. Our brown shoes lasted the entire school year.

My sisters and I played school all summer when we were not in actual school. Maybe that is why our eldest sister became a teacher herself. Others of us also have been interested in teaching, at least part time. We read all summer long. We wrote things and went through the entire opening exercises just for the joy of it. Having a father that was a teacher may have contributed to our interest and enjoyment. I never tired of school.

I always was glad when school resumed to see old and new friends. We went to a one-room school for eight grades and had only one teacher for all grades. The teacher did everything, including small repairs on the school. She was nurse when we got scraped or sick. She built the fire in the stove each morning. She prepared all the assignments and wrote the test questions or lesson plans on the blackboard. She was a busy lady and dedicated to seeing we were all educated properly and ready to go to high school. We all excelled in high school because of the great basic education we received.

Recess, lunch hour and before school was play time. We played softball and had a merry-go-round and Giant Stride. We had teeter-totters and a bar to chin ourselves. We played Annie Over and Red Rover. We played kick the can until we scuffed the toes of our shoes. The girls played Jacks and the boys played Mumbletypeg.

It always makes us feel a little sad when our last child leaves home and goes away to college. We know it is the end of an era and the beginning of another. We have that empty nest feeling when we walk by the straightened, undisturbed room formerly alive with noise and activity. It is a day we have been waiting for and then when it happens, we are nostalgic and a little sad.

Whether kids are attending grade school or college, nothing says “welcome home” like a plate of these cookies.



Snickerdoodles

1 cup soft shortening

11/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

23/4 cups flour

2 teaspoons cream of tarter

1 teaspoon soda

pinch salt



Cream shortening, sugar, and eggs. Stir in dry ingredients that have been sifted together. Roll in one-inch balls and dip in mixture of two tablespoons sugar and two teaspoons cinnamon. Place on cookie sheet and bake at 350ºF about 12 minutes until lightly browned.



Send your comments to: Peggy Goodrich, Food For Thought, P.O. Box 1192, Enid, OK 73702.