First Day of School

Good morning, Sunday Summer day, church day, begining of a new week day and the last day of unstructured  8-4.  Come Monday, school days, dear old Golden Rule days start fresh and way to soon.  Remember when the 1st day was always after Labor Day?  I also remember practically every year it poured rain causing more stress for parents, puddles of muddy fun for us kids.  

My Mom would safety pen an envelope with a check to pay for a month of school lunches, to the front of my dress.  I was instructed to go straight to the school office before class.  The Principal's nice pretty secretary would remove the penned envelope while saying pleasant things to smooth over my humiliation.   Wasn't the first day of school hard and confusing enough?  What was my Mom thinking? 

The pretty nice lady in the office was so kind to me and said such funny things about my safety pens that by the end of the school year I looked forward to my brief morning once a month, walk of humiliation.  That nice, pretty lady it turns out was my bestfriend Ruthann's Mother,  Nancy Jo Ulbrich.   I so admired her while I was growing up and I love and admire her to this day.  She accomplished so many things in addition to corraling us kids.   Role model, wise counselor, I learned so much from her.   Thank you Nancy!  Love ya lots. kisses