Summer holidays: no time for back-to-school sales

By Maurice Switzer

No sooner had they stopped promoting flags for Canada Day, department stores began launching back-to-school sales.

I doubt that engendered much enthusiasm among kids who felt their summer holidays had barely started.

Choruses of “No more teachers, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks” still rang in their ears. Youngsters looking forward to hanging out at the mall with no study responsibilities in sight found themselves surrounded by displays pushing bargain prices for everything from crayons to backpacks.

I, for the most part, didn’t need to be convinced that going to school was a good idea. Mind you, in my day there weren’t as many distractions, no cell phones, internet, television, or even malls in which to hang out. We just understood that you had to go to school if you ever planned on having more money than your parents gave you for cutting the lawn.

There was, however, an opening-day glitch.

Lakefield Public School was barely 200 yards from my grandparents’ little house when my mother gently shoved me out of the nest and down Edward Street for my very first day of Grade One.

I’m an only child, and perhaps it was the experience of sharing the same space with 40 other kids I didn’t know that prompted my decision; by the time recess rolled around I left the school.

For some reason, I felt the best way to launch my formal education was to hole up with a good book in my grandparents’ outhouse.

My working mother must have anticipated such an eventuality, and enlisted the support of my aunt, who lived a few houses down the road. She shortly opened the outhouse door and escorted me back to a more structured academic environment.

I can’t blame my hesitancy on the Grade One teacher, Miss Elsie Kidd, who was in the middle of an impressive 51-year career and whose youthful charges had included my own mother.

Miss Kidd had silver hair tied back in a spinster’s bun and wore a pair of rimless granny glasses. She could draw images with coloured chalk on a blackboard that I would have felt rivalled the talents of Rembrandt, if only I had known who he was.

She never raised her voice. She rewarded our every fledgling effort at printing or drawing by stamping gold stars on our worksheets. And on the last day of school, gave each of us a five-cent coin.

We imagined she must be extremely wealthy, because that magnificent sum was enough to buy a large bottle of Orange Crush or a double-scoop cone of one of the dozen flavours available at Hamblin’s Restaurant and Ice Cream Parlour.

My education inauguration was a resounding success. In 15 more years of formal learning, I never once felt the urge to retreat to a toilet – indoor or outdoor – to escape my studies again.

In fact, I can remember the names – and picture most of the faces – of almost every classroom teacher from whom I have been privileged to learn over the years. I owe them all a great debt for the encouragements they provided me.

At the same time, I never wanted anyone to interrupt my precious summer holidays with sales pitches for new crayons, three-ring binders, or the latest in back-to-school duds.

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Maurice Switzer, Bnesi, is a citizen of the Michi Saagig of Alderville First Nation. He serves as president of the North Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre and is a lifelong learner.