15     SCHOOL DAZE

KEY CONCEPTS:  nostalgia, innocence, childhood, origins, the past, children, education, training.

MESSAGE:  It’s easy to drift into sentimentality over yesteryear.  Let’s face it: nostalgia supplies the fuel driving tourists down our favorite motorway.  Remembering childhood capers lures wistful smiles to even the gruffest, most grizzled face. As youngsters, some looked forward to riding the bus more than attending classes.  It wasn’t quite recess, but it had its innocent pleasures—like bus bingo or sailing a paper airplane to your best buddy. This twice-daily road trip highlighted social progress as we advanced from grade to grade.

If you’ve pulled School Daze, have you done your homework?  Pay attention and find the “teacher” in every difficult person you meet.  Is it time to seek new training?  Perhaps you could develop untapped skills.   Consider a new vocation, or possibly an extracurricular activity.  Keep your inner child’s mind open and ready to absorb new ideas.  Life continually presents a chance to return to the blackboard; are there problems you’re ready to solve?  We become well-rounded through studying multiple disciplines, but some students never make it out of the classroom.  Are you a perpetual pupil? That won’t get you extra credit. You’ll be wearing the dunce cap when you fail to launch.

Your School Daze stint as passenger dropped juvenile thrills like riding backwards on the bus or making goofy faces out the rear exit…but looking back while you’re driving makes you crash.  No amount of nostalgia can return those halcyon salad days.  Your polka-dot rainbow jumper dripped with cool on your first field trip,  but kindergarten threads look foolish in the workplace. How did your go-to vibe become ill-fitting, worn out, and ridiculously out of style?  It got off the bus and failed to keep moving with the times.  Learn your lesson, dear traveler: jump out of that old jumper and into the now.

RELATED SITES:  AMBOY SCHOOL, AMBOY GHOST TOWN, CA; GOFF’S SCHOOLHOUSE MUSEUM, GOFFS, CA;  ICONIC YELLOW SCHOOL BUSES  COMPLETE DAILY ROUNDS ALL ALONG THE MOTHER ROAD IN SEASON; TULSA, OK AND PASADENA, CA ARE BOTH SITES OF SCHOOL BUS MANUFACTURE.