From Tati Amare – Back to school time will always evoke a happy giddiness and forever hold a special place in my heart. I would be so excited to get my school supplies, new backpack, and school clothes and get the school year started! In fact, the anticipation of the first day of school, getting to meet my new teachers, and being back in the classroom was almost as fun as the last day of school before summer.
Back to school time almost felt like another opportunity at a “New Year” - like a mini-January 1st. The season’s changing, and you’re able to start a new grade with a fresh and clean slate with optimism setting the course for the new challenges ahead.
Recommended Videos
So, as we say hello to the new school year for the kids in our families let’s use it as an opportunity to remember the wonderful times that school offered us as kids.
From Jason Carr - The fresh start with basically a whole new wardrobe was everything, Tati.
One year my friends and I were obsessed with a certain kind of gym shoe (tennis shoe? Sneaker?) that had knobby soles. Like almost cleats but not quite. Then we would go out to the dirt part of the playground and compete to see who could do the best foot peel-out. Absurd but that’s what kids are good at.
A year later the shoes were forgotten and we were onto designer jeans, which was an absolute craze for both women and men, girls and boys. Jordache, Sergio Valente, Calvin Klein. Dark denim and uncomfortably tight, so tight you almost couldn’t get the Goody comb out of your back pocket to feather your hair. By the time that school year was over my mother had let the hem out of my Jordache jeans so I had white rings around my ankles. But at least my jeans were no longer Toughskins, which were the worst.
Now if you’ll excuse me I have to organize my Trapper Keeper.
This story originally appeared in The Buzz newsletter from Live In The D. For more stories like this, and to stay up to date with things happening in and around the D, sign up under the newsletter section at ClickOnDetroit.