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September 1, 2010

Garret Leiva: Summer meets bitter end

By Garret Leiva Community editor

Today I offer up my condolences and rusty metal lunch box to every school-age kid.

Here comes the big yellow bus of reality: summer is over. Sure you still have Labor Day weekend, but that's like presidents throwing out first pitches — purely ceremonial.

It's been decades since I last dodged study hall spitballs. However, some back-to-school memories remain sharp as a #2 pencil. No wonder my daughter says I squeeze her hand too tight at the bus stop.

As constellations and calendars go, summer isn't officially over yet. You children know the truth: your days are numbered. Parents, let the bedtime sanctions begin.

Many kids will soon return to the world of "lefty" scissors, long division and Darwinian dodgeball. Other young souls face the dual challenge of puberty and locker combinations.

The first week of school is a rude awakening — especially those 6:30 a.m. bus stops.

Too bad you spent half your summer break updating your Facebook page every five minutes with boredom reports. Try not to think of the hours you Twittered away as you take your assigned seat.

Before you sit at your desk watch out for nose goblins and gum stuck since the Clinton administration.

I'd equate going back to school after summer vacation to pulling off a Band-Aid. Every year it was a mixture of anxiety, dislodged arm hairs, dull pain and a scar or two. Of course, that was just the bus ride to school.

Going back to school means changes in homeroom teachers, bus routes and colors in the cafeteria meatloaf.

The first day of kindergarten can cause a few tears — and not just on 5-year-old faces. There are all those rote lessons: ABCs, 1,2,3s, don't eat the Play-Doh. You're even expected to raise your hand before going to the bathroom, and not the other way around.

However, what grown-up doesn't miss the kindergarten nap. Sadly, sleeping on a carpet square is frowned on in the adult work world; even at the Berber factory.

Like most kids, I didn't savor those idyllic days unfettered from homework and hot lunch trays; I simply inhaled them. Two days into summer vacation, I hit a home run to win the World Series. I also jumped Snake River Canyon on my bike and saved the planet from certain destruction — twice. By day three I was bored out of my mind.

The chapters of my summer vacation often included titles like "Take Apart Intricate Mechanisms ... Before Dad Gets Home" or "Shove Evidence Under the Bed ... Before Dad Gets Home." Unfortunately, my summer break read like Cliff Notes instead of a well-paced novel.

By the time I rediscovered the true bliss of childhood, summer vacation was over. I went from model airplanes to modeling Toughskin jeans for my mother at the annual back-to-school shopping trip. The constellations still said summer, but it was a new season: bedtime sanctions.

Soon I'll be waking our third-grader to a new yellow bus reality. However, it will take a few days to acclimate to the school routine of backpack and non-metalliferous lunch box. Like school desk nose goblins, it's not easy to wipe away summer.

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