Freight Train: the first week of school.

RantWoman gave a message on Sunday about a freight train.

RantWoman is clear to line a lot of cars from the freight train in her blog and to keep TRYING to send clear signals and give people options about how much to read.

This car is about the first week of school.
Readers who want the post boiled down are free to read a sincere wish to everyone starting a new school year for growth and learning, for good teachers well-supported and for a fun, positive, respectful school environment free of bullying, teasing, mocking, making fun of....

Sensible Auntie offers a special shout out to parents whose kids have any kind of special need. RantWoman for instance, MOST of the time thanks RantMom for marching in almost every year and insisting the teacher let RantWoman sit in the front row to ensure that RantWoman could see the blackboard. Thanks Mom. Never mind about the social life.

Now feel free to click away or read further at your choice.


RantWoman remembers being manically excited about kindergarten. RantWoman suspects this excitement might have been as much eagerness to get out of the house as anything else but RantWoman remembers the thrill of having to cross a big street (urk, state highway actually) at a crosswalk with a traffic signal. RantWoman remembers a 3-story yellow brik building. The kindergarten class was on the first floor and had an asphalt playground. RantWoman has NO memory of anyone except the teacher and a kid named Bryan who teased and got teased. Other than that, RantWoman assumes she must have gotten new glasses part way through the year because RantWoman remembers it suddently became dramatically easier to color within the lines.

A radio show about starting school mentioned the cafeteria. RantWoman remembers her first grade lunchroom experience: RantWoman early on wound up sitting at a table with a bunch of little girls who spent the whole lunch period telling RantWoman to "stop staring." RantWoman's glasses make her eyes look big and on top of that, it takes RantWoman longer than average to focus. In other words, RantWoman took a lot of grief for not even necessarily getting a lot of visual satisfaction from the staring.

RantWoman's memory of second grade, besides the Weekly Reader poll (do you really think RantWoman is going to say which presidential year?) was the annual school eye test. RantWoman and the rant Brother both went through a number of years where we would flundk half the eye test. The school nurse would send home a "Dear Parent, did you know..." letter and the Rant Parents would write back something along the lines of "Dear School Nurse. We know. We are working on it. There is no pediatric ophthalmologist in town and..."

RantWoman thinks the eye issue must have been taken care of between fourth and fifth grade. RantWoman remembers new glasses on a trip back to CO from MT. RantWoman read to everyone stuck in the Rant Family vehicle every road sign between MT and CO--and the Rant Parents mercifully did not disown her. RantWoman also came home with an eye patch that she was supposed to wear over her good eye to make the one newly liberated of its scar tissue crank into action. Supposed to wear would be the operative point. RantWoman also got a lot of exercise: her classroom was on the third floor of the same yellow brick building where she started kindergarten.

RantWoman has also been thinking of fifthe grade because the world's most irrepressible nephew started fifth grade. RantWoman HOPES that nephew's fifthe grade does a better job of keeping him stimulated and motivated than RantWoman's did. RantWoman spent most of fifth grade with either Cherry Ames Girl Nurse or Nancy Drew novels propped open inside her textbooks.

Then RantWoman broke her leg. On the first Friday after Christmas vacation, RantWoman took her new Christmas present ice skates to the local rink. RantWoman skated and skated and was very nearly happy with herself...until...RantWoman's bad eye missed seeing a very ugly patch of chopped up ice. RantWoman did not just want to land on her behind. RantWoman really has no idea what maneuver she tried to execute; she just landed howling in pain, had to crawl across the ice to the ice house, cry for awhile and call RantDad for a ride home. The RantDad sensibly realized that if RantWoman couldn't walk on her leg, probably going straight to the ER was a better idea.

RantWoman came home from the ER with a full leg cast and a prescription for Darvon. Thenceforth, RantWoman spent several weeks going to school on heavy pain meds and was still bored out of her skull. Fifth Grade band was especially blessed that year too: RantWoman played percussion. So did another kid with a broken leg. RantWoman had graduated to walking cast and no crutches by the spring concert but the other kid still got to try to shift around among different pieces of percussion equipment AND stay on his crutches. RantWoman hopes Irrepressible Nephew has a MUCH less eventful fifth grade than all of this.

RantWoman thanks the RantParents for, among other discernment, figuring out that a bigger city schools would likely do a better job of keeping RantWoman engaged; the following summer the family picked up and moved to MT.

None of this boiled down, during Meeting for Worship at least, to any kind of Blessings upon the Beginning of the School year message for the whole room. Alas.