Back to School

Pass It On is a new, bi-weekly peek inside the heart and mind of Francis Pass…

Listen:

Click the play button to listen to Francis Pass tell this story.

I loved school. I loved going TO school. In fact, I hated to be sick.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I also loved summer break. Fourteen hours of sunlight meant extra play time with my brother, Mike.

We’d play all day until we looked like that one character from Peanuts. You know the one who walked around in a cloud of dust? That was us all summer.

We never wanted to come in because that meant it was time for a bath and bed.

So, yes, I loved summer. But when it was time for school, I was ready to go back.

Dad would take me shopping to buy one or two brand new pairs of blue jeans for the new school year. If memory serves, we’d buy our jeans at the J.C. Penney store in Cairo.

We’d also go over to the Sears store in Cape Girardeau to get a few new shirts. I wore a 17 ½ inch neck. That’s a little bit of trivia for ya.

And you didn’t dare wear the shoes you junked around in all summer. It was important to dad that our school shoes were neat and clean. So we’d head over to Paducah to pick up two pair.

I felt like a million bucks in my new school clothes.

Man, I loved going back to school.

The excitement of seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Cracking open a new textbook or sharpening a box of unsharpened pencils.

There was also something about the smell of a new classroom that appealed to me. I can’t exactly explain what that aroma is, but I know it when I smell it. And it always takes me back.

What about your kids? Are they ready to go back to school? Or are they still clinging to those last few hours of summer sunlight?

They probably think I’m crazy for loving school.

But one of these days, they’ll understand.

Be well. Stay well. Thanks for readin’…

Francis Pass

P.S. – Homework was invented in Venice, Italy in the year 1095 by a fella named Roberto Nevelis. I bet your kids really like him.