From the top of Northampton Road to St. Joseph’s School was approximately 2 miles. While Mom would drive us, a good part of the time, we also road the city bus to school. It would pick us up at the corner of Van Dyke and Northampton, traveling down Glen Ave. and dropping us at Greene Street and Market Street. Most of the time, we got a ride to school, one way or the other. The only walking was past the Rambler dealer, on Greene and on down the block to Guy Park. Mostly, to school was uneventful. The only memorable time of getting to St. Joseph’s was of 8th grade, when I did walk the distance fairly often during that last spring in elementary school. I remember, distinctly, having a red jacket that I wore and checking the temperature, each morning, to determine if I needed a jacket or not. The determining factor was 60 degrees. If it was at or above that mark, no jacket. If it was slightly lower, though was supposed to get much warmer than that, no jacket.
We made our own lunches, back then. Standing in line, at the counter in the kitchen, making our own sandwiches and putting our brown bags together. The school supplied milk and we could get chocolate or white. I remember opting for chocolate, for some reason not liking the white. Just spoiled by the option, no doubt. In 8th grade, we took turns getting the milk together for the various classes. It was delivered on the street level and we would have to put it in individual metal crates, having a specific order of white or chocolate for the various classrooms. As the person responsible for delivering the milk, we then would set a crate of milk outside the door to each class. Back then, the milk came in bottles. Even on the third floor of the school, we could hear the milk deliveries going on, the bottles clinking together and against the metal crates.
After school, I almost always walked home, in the last couple of years of elementary school. Yes, it was all uphill from the school to home. I remember distinctly the changing of the seasons and perhaps this began my first real connection to the individual seasons. Since then, the seasonal changes have always been very important to me and when I’ve lived somewhere that this change was not as distinct, I have found myself missing something, like something about the weather wasn’t right. Reflecting back on this time, I now know that this sense of lacking is connected to how I engaged in the different seasons, throughout the school year.
At the beginning of the school year, the September weather was pleasantly cooler than summer, with the world otherwise feeling like a simple summer walk, the green leaves dancing in the breeze of the changing season. Temperatures slowly drooping from summertime highs, the leaves began to change. Along with the change in color came a change in smells. The Autumn has always been my favorite season, perhaps in part by the distinctive smell that the changing leaves, temperatures and humidity bring to the air. I can’t say that this is a sense of death, though the leaves eventually turn to brown as the sap recedes and the trees move toward winter slumber. As the leaves begin to drop, my trek home became more of a shuffle through leaves, an observance of spiraling maple samaras, and the discovery of acorns and horse chestnuts, evergreen cones and birch cones in the debris underfoot. I found myself purposefully finding piles of leaves, even going out of my way to shuffle through their presence.
Winter brought an interesting challenge and eventful walk home. Of course there was the trudge through unshoveled snow and sliding on the ice, climbing over snow banks and easily traversing the occasional and sometimes ordinarily well maintained walkways. With the colder temperatures there was the added effect of thawed then frozen snow crunching underfoot with, at times. a distinctive ice laden crunch. This was the time when I happened onto Mrs. Conant, with her small trash can needing to be brought to the curb and returned to her rear porch. She knowingly, coyly solicited my help for a total of 25 cents each time I handled this chore for her. When I got older and no longer interested in doing this job, one of my brothers picked up the torch. It wasn’t the money but the helping of an elderly lady that both started and continued this tradition.
Lastly, the move into spring, the thawing, the advent of blooms, along with a sort of resurgence into summertime smells brought on a fascination with the breaking of the ice. For those of us growing up in Upstate NY, you’re well acquainted with the ice covered puddles which could be deceiving in the thickness of the ice dropping you unexpectedly into the ankle deep water, at times. Other times, the air bubbles underneath let you know that the water was moving and the ice was easily crunchable by bouncing the brunt of your heal atop the bubble. As well, my favorite was the melting of the curbside snow banks. Once the melting snow began to seep under these receding glaciers you could seek out the places where you could successfully collapse the ice/snow crust immediately above the water. Occasionally, this collapse caused a dam, of sorts, which could present additional adventures the following day. Somehow, it often took me longer to get home from school, during this time of year. Eventually, the challenge of breaking ice and directing the waters course melted away, followed by the greening of the trees and once again a change in the scent of the atmosphere as I discovered the different flowers blooming and the resurgence of leaves and shade.
I suppose, my tendency to get caught up in the happenings of nature around me mostly kept the walk home anything but a simple march from school to home. Yet, there were those days, as we all may recall, when a long day at school, or the onset of some form of influenza made this trek anything other than a chore, at least.