They're back! 

   Kids are no longer opening their laptops instead of their lunch boxes.  They have been waiting for the pandemic of 2020 to disappear - it hasn’t all together but most schools are open and my grandaughter is seeing her friends again.  Teachers, parents and students are all hoping for a return to normal (will there ever will be a normal again?) 

And then I remember my first day in college…my summer job torture was done until next summer and I'm commuting and leaving my Millville kid-days behind.  I drove our family VW Bug (we only had one car in my growing up unlike today when kids get real cars for Christmas).   My Dad was “bumming”  a ride, as he said, from a guy  who worked with at the glass plant so I could get to Glassboro (Another town after it’s industry) and to the campus of  Glassboro State College.  I was extremly happy my summer of “real” work in one of Millville’s sweaty glass plants was over until the spring and I’d mostly likely be working shifts packing more bottles.  

GSC was a short commute and I would come to know every inch of the old concrete highway with a bump at every seam as I drove back and forth (and sometimes back again for an event).  This was the first day as an Art Education major at a teacher’s college but in reality my journey started long before this ride.  I was heading to the local college as most of my friends were on their way to “bigtime” schools.  Gus to Duke.  Bub to Penn.  Frank to Brown.  And Cal to GSC for two reasons - I couldn’t afford a big school.  And I hate math.  To get into an ivy covered institution one had to have great greats in “advanced” math - like calculus and “trig” (trigonometry).  Note:  After 60 years I still don’t know what algebra is for or why I took two years of it?  My BMF Bub was a whiz at math and wanted to be an architect.  A profession where I presumed it was needed because he would be constantly measuring 2 x 4’s and tons of concrete.  As for me - I was more of a fine arts type.  I like to draw.  He like to “draft”.   And I was really good at drawing stuff that looked like what I was drawing.  From kindergarten I was told “you should be an artist...you are a good drawer...etc.   And so in my junior year at good ole Memorial High I ceased taking math and filled my class schedule with art class and study hall.  For most art was an elective that was part of the “liberal arts” for a cultured person.  For me it was my “calling”.   Plus, I didn’t have to measure anything or figure how long it would take a plane to fly to California at 300 miles an hour.  (Math word problems always were stupid in my mind.  Couldn’t figure out why anyone would care about the question asked (except pilots maybe).

And so while my friends had been sending their transcripts of honor society grades to universities I was shipping art portfolios to the best schools close to home (I didn’t want to go too far as I was basically a “home body” as my grandmother Ethel called me.  And frankly I was worried that I would go halfway across the country and then not have the money to get home for Christmas and miss all my pal’s tales of adventure and conquests of coeds. 

A couple of months passed and like most kids except the “math-sharks” like David I waited nervously for letters of acceptance from at least one of my4 applications.  And to my surprise I got into all four schools I applied to - Pratt, The Philadelphia Museum College of Art.  The New School and GSC (my backup as recommended by my guidance counselor because he said, “Art school is very competitive and they have the choice of the best of the best!”  This scared me.).  Then I got an even bigger surprise - I was offered a full scholarship to the Museum College which was a lot of money.