I mostly remember smells. Old pictures help with names. The change in the weather from hot to not as hot. Most of my real memories of first day at school are from elementary days.
It’s the first day for public schools here, too. Where I grew up the first day was always the Wednesday after Labor Day.
The memory I most closely associate with the first day is the outfit… I grew up in the north eastern US. I’m also old enough that in grade school we didn’t wear jeans or shorts to school I wore skirts and dresses and some unfortunate pant suit ensembles. So, the clothes we picked out when school shopping were definitely fall and winter clothes, distinctly different from what we’d been wearing all summer. There was always one outfit that I landed on as my favorite and I’d wear that. 2/3 of the time the weather was still summery but my favorite new outfit, which would signify how cool and potentially popular I could be to my previously unsuspecting classmates, was decidedly wintery. I remember a plaid wool skirt and a cable knit sweater. Oh sure, I looked good. Very put together. But by the end of the day I was miserable, and would end up not wearing it again until late October.
Few things make me smile as much as a fresh array of school supplies.
My son went to school today in shorts and a t-shirt. He didn’t want new shoes. His backpack was bought last year. I don’t know if it’s just not important to him or if the first day of school is just like all the other days of school to everyone his age.
My absolute first thought about “first day of school” was exactly this. I remember fifth grade, I had this awesome skirt/sweater combo–the skirt itself was a sweater! How cool was that? (In my defense, it was the 80’s.) By lunchtime, I was sweating bullets.
Ninth grade is my clearest memory. I had just moved and was at a new school, having to suffer the enormous indignity of still being in junior high when all my old friends were now officially in high school thanks to the way my new regional junior/senior high split up the grades. I don’t think I have ever felt that awkward before or since. The idea of taking a bus to school was completely new, moving one town over apparently came with a whole new set of fashion rules, I didn’t know where my locker was, let alone homeroom.
I feel like I should remember the first day of my senior year, but I’m drawing a complete blank. Sure as hell remember the last day, though.
In my day, the first day was always September 10, assuming it was on a Monday through Thursday - this was because September 9 is a California state holiday (it’s the anniversary of when California became a state).
“Where was my locker located this year”? In my day, I kept the same locker from one year to the next (well, except for P.E. lockers). There was always that one kid looking over my shoulder trying to get my locker combination.
In California we usually get our hottest weather in September and even early October, so wearing those new clothes was torture, especially during the Santa Ana winds.
This is still - 42 years after graduating high school - my least favorite time of year because it was the end of the glorious freedom of summer vacation. I hate school.
I never wanted school to come again. August was an entire month of slow-boiling anxiety about how I’d have to go back. And summer work - what a smack in the face.
I have a soft spot for school supplies as they are usually small and brightly colored but the first day back at school was never anything good. What will the school system subject me to again? A locker on the opposite side of school from my classrooms? No friends in my classes? I didn’t get the art class I requested? How awful will gym running requirements be this year?
Trapper-keepers though, Lisa Frank Trapper-keepers. Am I right or am I right.
We were po’, so I never had Trapper Keepers, much less the Lisa Frank variety (and truly, I don’t recall whether those were a thing back in my day. I think Trapper Keepers hit the market around 1980, when I was in sixth grade.)
The only first days I remember with any clarity are first grade (I didn’t attend kindergarten,) fourth grade (a few days after my father’s funeral,) and seventh grade, when we moved to a new county and school district. The last was miserable. Nothing will ever be quite as awkward as being the badly-dressed new kid at that age. I literally had classmates following me around while running laps in PE, singing a made up song mocking the brand of jeans I wore. It didn’t help that I was tall and gawky, smart, and painfully shy, with red hair. One of my classmates nicknamed me the Towering Inferno, which was clever, but not kind…
I remember the smell of books and pencil shavings and how shiny everything was. The grade school I attended was built around the turn of the last century, and every summer the janitors would strip and revarnish the wood floors.
I was one of those kids who loved going back to school because it meant I got to spend 7 or 8 hours reading every day instead of helping my mother with housework. Don’t get me wrong—I loved summer, but I always looked forward to any kind of change, especially the seasonal ones.
If I recall correctly, no school I ever went to started in August… It was always early September. And I hated it with a passion. It didn’t help that my family moved at least once a year for the majority of my childhood, so I was always the new kid. The only first day I really remember now was 6th grade: I was standing outside waiting on the bus and I realized that for every first day of school I could remember (clearly more than now) it rained while I was waiting on the bus. I think I used the fact that it was raining as a way to comfort myself since I couldn’t have been outside anyway.
Not necessarily the first day of school, but I also have a vague memory of the smell. The smell of pencil shavings, crayons, paper and books that were older than my parents all came together to give a unique scent to the classroom that is still stuck with me. (And the smell of a pencil being sharpened still brings back that memory and gives me a desire for freedom.:p)
I’m just curious if your “smell memory” includes that sweeping compound they used in our school in the 50’s. Has that stuff been done away with? Ours was pinkish and had a sort of petroleum tone, but every time I smell something like that I think of grammar school and going back to classes.
The high school I coach at starts around Aug. 8-11. The District takes off a week each at Easter and Thanksgiving and two weeks for Christmas/ New Year.
I remember that the first day of school was always rainy, even if we had just gone through a two week heat wave and hadn’t seen a cloud in the sky since mid-July. It was the universe’s way of saying, “You’re mine now, bitches!”
First day of school yesterday in CT. In a reaction (over-reaction?) to Sandy Hook, all students are dropped off outside. My niece, starting kindergarten, hates it.
Yeah, I remember that stuff. They only used it in our school if there was a stinky mess they needed to clean up, like during an outbreak of gastroenteritis. My husband, who once worked as a school janitor, says it was oil-impregnated sawdust.
