Like, I suspect, many people my age, I used to spend my summers, from late July onwards, dreading the day I’d have to go back to school.
You remember, don’t you? Every morning you’d wake up to find that another day (a whole day!) had gone by and armageddon was inching ever closer.
Sometimes, by late August, you started to figure maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. You were kind of missing your friends and starting to get the feeling that your mother was close to the end of her rope. Best to get out now before she completely blows her top and signs you up for military school or sends you to a convent.
So you went on that first day with a sense of tremulous anticipation. Maybe things would be different this time. Maybe this would be your year.
It never was.
Within a few minutes of walking through the gates, you discovered that Billy had moved away. Ted had become a born again something or other. Angelina, your secret crush, had started going out with that moron Jimbo “chopper” Jones. Slugger Smith, the neighbourhood bully, was sitting directly behind you in homeroom. And you had Mrs. McMeany for math. Again!
So it all falls apart fairly quickly. And from there it’s nothing but a long and remorseless slog.
It’s been (good lord!) 45 years since I finished high school. But I remember the experience vividly. It was a blend of hour upon hour of tedium, sprinkled with moments of absolute terror, like when your French teacher asked you to conjugate a verb or two in front of the class.
Umm Je sweez, Tu ezz … umm.
I can still run through some of that stuff in my head. And I can still remember how to solve simultaneous equations. I haven’t found either of those skills much use as a conversation starter over the last four and a half decades though.
But I get the feeling that things may be different now. Yesterday I watched through our front window as a gaggle of teens headed towards Frank Maddock High School. It was day two of the school year and they were giving a very passable impression of being happy. One was bouncing a ball. A couple were holding hands. All of them were laughing and chatting. None of them appeared to be gripped by existential dread. Not even a little bit.
Of course, that’s just a small sample of the student population. Perhaps the rest of them were cowering in a basement somewhere. But I think perhaps they weren’t. I know my grandson, who is 16, was pretty sanguine about heading back to class.
It’s common for my generation to complain about the state of the world today. Sometimes we have a point. But I get the impression that things are not all that bad. Kids today seem happier, more balanced and more accepting of each other than we were a few decades ago. They seem less hung up and more chilled out. They seem mostly pretty happy. And that’s got to be a good thing.
