Beautiful weather is back to finish off, presumably, a near-perfect summer at Joe's Pond.  We truly cannot expect these 80-degree days and cool nights to last much longer, but it surely has been nice!

All the talk about kids getting back to school made me think today about how it was for me going back to school after a carefree summer.  I remember how restrictive my clothes felt after a summer of shorts and halter tops.  And wearing shoes!  School shoes were heavy and hot and gave me blisters on my heels.  By the end of the summer, my canvas tennis shoes were worn through in spots, giving my toes lots of freedom and fresh air.  I remember how they felt after my cousins and I had to drive stupid Holsteins out of swamps; mud nearly to our knees and we were lucky if our shoes didn't get sucked off our feet in the cold, slithery muck.  I remember, too, how good it felt to wash the mud off in a cold brook - and how we could never seem to get all the grit out of our wet shoes.  The canvas dried quickly and by the time we got to the barn with the cows, we'd forgotten about our uncomfortable feet.

I remember sitting in the classroom at school and watching work going on in the fields - the cows were often let into the hayfield to graze rather than being put in the pasture.  We kids used to think it was because none of the adults wanted to go and get the beasts every afternoon like we'd done all summer.  It didn't seem fair that getting the cows was suddenly a matter of gathering them out of a treeless, dry, level hayfield.  But being inside all day was really punishing after a care-free summer, especially during the first weeks when the weather was still warm.  Once we began to get frosty mornings, we were all getting used to the confinement of school and the lure of the outdoors lessened.

Later, when I was in high school, I rode my bike to Cabot every day, and the frosty mornings turned into hot afternoons during September, and by the middle of October I was having to watch out for icy spots that could send me and my Elgin sideways in an instant.  Eventually it got too cold and when snow threatened, I had to board in town during the week and hitch a ride home with Uncle Bob on weekends.  He lived in town and worked on my grandfather's farm, so went up onto the Plain early every morning and returned after milking at night.  I'd get up early to go home with him on Saturday mornings and ride back with him Sunday night, or sometimes my father would take me to school on Monday morning so I could have a little extra time at home. 

I've been listening to the new "study" just made public that says schools should start at 8:30 - later rather than 7:30 like most do.  I think our classes started at 9 o'clock and we got out of school at 3.  I don't remember being groggy for lack of sleep in the morning - but that perhaps proves the point of this new study.  We didn't have the gadgets or television like kids do today.  There was the family radio, one phone attached to the wall and the only thing we carried around in our hand was a book or magazine to read and the games we played came in boxes or were activities to do outside; and at the end of the day we were ready for bed by 9 o'clock or earlier.  How times have changed!

Now we're also being told that the light from hand-held devices and television can prevent kids from getting to sleep, and there's more bad news - but you can read about the study HERE.  I'm often skeptical about these kinds of "studies," but then again I can see the sense of what the experts are saying. One thing is for sure - it's a lot easier to talk or write about these things than it is to actually implement changes accordingly.  Taking these gizmos away from kids I suspect would be akin to taking a bone away from Fido.  Makes me glad my kids are adults.