summer
Saturday, September 1, 2012 at 2:32PM As of midnight tonight, summer will officially be over. Labor Day in Minnesota signals the end of the State Fair and the beginning of the new school year.
That's how we roll, all agricultural and stuff.
When I was teaching in other states, states who got their start dates all wrong, school began in August. Even after a dozen years, it always felt wholly incorrect to do this, like the school calendar had been created by a bad, bad man who deserved a stern talking to and some eggs thrown at his car.
School is supposed to start in September. It just is.
Today, children are running, pell-mell, all over this fine state, through the forests, across the lakeshores and riverbanks.
One last hurrah.
No one says pell-mell anymore.
Why is that? Let's bring it back, just you and me.
You start saying pell-mell and I will too, OK?
You know what else I like? I like the word beserkly.
As in, "The horsedogs romped beserkly through the late summer woods."
"Hurtling themselves harum-scarum into the marsh,"
"Whilst stirring up all manner of water fowl."
I will pay you $20 if you can legitimately work "whilst stirring up all manner of water fowl" into polite conversation this week.
Or one million dollars if you can say the following with a mouth full of marbles:
With blackest moss the flower-pots
Were thickly crusted, one and all
Name that movie.
The woods this time of year are full of fungi.
I stumbled across these miniscule examples whilst allowing my equine-canines to gambol helter-skelter one eventide.
That's how I roll.
Goodbye, summer.
Thank you, Minnesota, for your state laws that require school to start at the appropriate time.
When does school start where you are? The right time or the wrong time?
Reader Comments (31)
LOVE "My Fair Lady!" That one is classic. :) And love your pictures, Sharon!
Thanks, Meridith! :D
If school starts in September, when does it let out? We always started LATE August in South Florida and got out mid June. Love your pictures and your horsedogs.
The movie is "My Fair Lady." And the poem is "Mariana" by Alfred Lord Tennyson. It just happens to be one of my favorite poems. I think it may be my favorite Tennyson poem. Victorian English Lit dork. Check.
There oughta be a law... oh, wait, I think there is one. School starts at the right time here in Wisconsin! It's the LAW! :)
School starts at the correct time here in BC too; the week of my birthday, and our town fall fair. My niece used to attend a school in Alberta that started at the wrong time, but has now moved to a school that has their dates right. Some places, sheesh!
College started 2 weeks ago. HS and elementary schools last week. But not Monday. And now they are off today. Break them in slowly, I guess.
I am with you!! I grew up in northern Baltimore county - and some time between when I went to school and when my sister went to school (10 years later) the world fell off it's axis and school started to begin in the middle of summer vacation. It's all wrong.
I could TOTALLY use that sentence in polite conversation. I use vexing on a regular basis. People would expect no less from me. That an my boss regularly takes her horsedogs to Loch Raven to play. 8-D
Giselle, school lets out in early June (June 6th, to be exact). As it should be. ;)
Eeewww! Two horsedogs in need of baths!
School? Here in Hungary they went back two weeks ago. Except the International Schools - they went back last week. But today wasn't a holiday. The last summer holiday here was August 20 - which neatly coincided with the first day of school the following day. See a pattern?
I think the people who made school start at the wrong time are the same ones who decided Fake Time (DST) would go on for more than half the year, as well. Who put these people in charge, anyway?!
I have to correct Amy A. As the 10-year-younger sister, I have to say that I did NOT start school before Labor Day. But that could be because I went to Catholic schools all along. Sometime in the early 90s the public schools did start going back early. Now I teach in a Catholic elementary school. When I interviewed there the principal made a point of saying that it was important to our families to be able to go back after Labor Day and that as long as she had it in her power, we would start after Labor Day. Needless to say, we started back last Monday. :( It's because a very bad, mean man declared that all schools must complete at least 185+ instructional days as well as 5+ professional development days for the teachers. Factor in holidays and that leaves you going from mid-August to mid-June. But I don't think we actually TEACH any more than we ever did!
Here in Texas, we start on the WRONG day! Last Monday, to be precise, which is absolutely ridiculous. Tomorrow would have been much, much better!
The Catholic school kids started back last Monday, the public school kids will start tomorrow. I, being the retired teacher that I am, think kids need to go to school year round. Sorry, people, just my opinion.
My kiddo starts high school on Wednesday, and I'm glad our Portland, Oregon area waits until after Labor Day. We always started the school year in late August when I was growing up in Nebraska, and it was stinkin' hot in those classrooms until the September days came to our rescue. We'd rather have been running pell-mell through the town whilst stirring up all manner of water fowl, instead of cooking ourselves in the classrooms and trying to pay attention. I say hooray for another glass of lemonade out on the breezy porch. School can wait!
We start tomorrow, as it should be. Though this year, I really wish we had about three more weeks of summer... it was so fantastic that I don't want it to end! This year too, *I* start school on Wednesday. So what am I doing with my first child-free day/last day of *my* summer? Why, throwing a wild and crazy party! Bring on the mimosas! I will do my best to work "pell-mell" and "whilst stirring up all manner of water fowl" into my polite (snort!) breakfast conversation. Happy Fall!
I want to live inside those pictures!!!
The right time ... if there is such a thing! I like being home with my 4 kiddies during the summer and always find it challenging to get back into the class.
We have the county fair and PRCA rodeo Labor Day weekend and then school starts the Wed after Labor Day. Lived down south for a while where school started in late August. That felt soooo wrong!
Most schools here start at the "right" time, though the private schools and the ones needing to up graduation rates start earlier. As a teacher, I think starting in September always just feels right. . .although, as a teacher, there is no such thing as starting in September . . .:) I loved your pictures. I wish I could have been there :)