It’s 11:15am and I’m squirming in my seat. Impatiently scraping my saddle shoes against the metal sidebars of my desk. I glance up at the big wall clock. Fifteen more minutes until lunch break. I can already taste the spicy hamburger loaded with fried onions and the iced cold Coke I will soon be guzzling. My best friend, Sharon, and I are heading straight for White Castle – four blocks away. Karen and Linda are trying the new pizza place by the library and Libby is heading home for lunch.
The recess bell pierces the silence of our classroom at exactly 11:30am. We hand-in our spelling tests and scramble for the door. Freedom. Ninety glorious minutes of unsupervised time to roam the streets surrounding our suburban elementary school.
It’s 1957. There are no locks on the portals of our schools. The red brick structure sports floor to ceiling windows that are open in both fall and spring to the outside world of fluttering leaves and newly mowed grass. Our school is a haven of safety, even though no armed guards march around the perimeter nor security cameras hang from the corners of our classrooms. The more responsible of the students are patrol boys – assigned to carefully cross the younger children at the intersections surrounding our three-story schoolhouse. It’s an oasis of learning – a building that fosters growth and both protects and shelters us.
In all the years my siblings and I attended that school, my parents never heard of one incidence of violence, threat or harm from a gun-wielding assailant – in the school, on the playground or in the surrounding neighborhoods we explored in – on our own – from 11:30am until 1pm each school day.
Our post-World War II schools periodically have fire drills, where we line-up and – in an orderly fashion – march outdoors. Periodically we have civil defense drills, where we are instructed to huddle under our desks for an allotted amount of time until the all-clear siren blasts from the speakers and we unscramble our little bodies and sit back down at our desks. We are told we do this as a precaution against invasion from that big scary country called Russia.
The civil defense drills themselves are benign, but the fact that a mean country so far away can possibly separate me from my mom, dad, brother and newly born little sister simply terrifies me. It is the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I ponder every night as darkness descends and I am alone in my bed: “Will I see my parents again, once I am dropped off at school?”
Of course, not all is serene. Trouble is brewing. Trouble I know little about. South Vietnam is being attacked by Viet Cong Guerrillas. Federal troops are sent to Arkansas to enforce anti-segregation laws. Writers and playwrights are convicted by The House for Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) for such things as Communist party membership. But to me, all that seems important is the burgeoning rage of Rock and Roll music, my hula hoop, pogo stick and Nancy Drew mystery books.
It’s now 2018. I’m no longer that scrawny, fearful ten-year-old, fifth grader. Now I’m a not-so- scrawny, but more fearful, seventy-year-old grandmother. And I don’t like what I see happening in our schools across the nation.
Many of us have a home to live in, a job to go to, a pantry stocked with food to eat, a car to ride in and a cell phone to communicate with. But our peace of mind has been eroded and our control of our kids’ safety is at great risk. We must no longer put our efforts into acquiring more of what we already have. We must direct our efforts toward getting what we don’t have: a safe environment for our children.
I realize that my grandchildren are not as lucky as my husband and I were. Their night terrors are based on reality, not like mine which were based on “What if’s”.
I realize that times have changed and violence flares up all around us. It certainly makes “Preserving Your Bloom” – my watchword – all the harder to do. It is easy to feel jaded. To shut down. To tune-out. But it is more imperative than ever to use our talents and resources to reflect on what we loved about the past and try to re-create that in the present.
- Let’s take our children to visit our nation’s capital physically or acquaint them with the wonders of our nation’s seat of government through books, documentaries and the Internet.
- Let’s visit Ellis Island and the Tenement Museum to show them how hard life was for the immigrants who flocked to our country’s shores seeking safe haven and how – through hard work and diligence – they succeeded.
- Let’s seek out historical landmarks in our own cities.
- Let’s tour our state and national parks to see the many natural wonders our United States has been blessed with.
- Let’s educate our kids on both the power and privilege of voting.
- Let’s expose our kids to our own family’s history – giving them the rich details of the sacrifices and triumphs they experienced firsthand.
- Let’s use our libraries, support our historical societies, display our American flag proudly and sing our national anthem with joy and vigor.
In these consistently diligent ways, we can make a difference. We can lessen the chance that our precious grandchildren will fall asleep in fear and wake up the same way, wondering, “Will I see my parents again, once I am dropped off at school?”
To my Jewish family and friends, a very joyous Seder surrounded by your loved ones. And to my many friends and readers who celebrate Easter, may it be a joyous time as well.
Keep Preserving Your Bloom,
Iris